Smallest of Smiles
by Obfuscati0n
Summary: It smiled. "Why should I give you, of all people, a second chance?" "...I don't know. I don't know why I would deserve a second chance, because I can't even promise you that I'll make use of it. But I do know that I will try. That I will never make the same mistakes I made ever again." And in that moment, as she stared into it's nonexistent eyes, she knew that that was the truth.
1. Chapter 1

**Why hello there.**

**I humbly thank you for taking time to read this story. The idea's been sitting around in my head for months, and I've had this chapter written down for weeks, and just now worked up the courage to post it. I've put much thought into my OC, to the point where she should be developed with her own flaws and strengths. If any of you believe she is on the track to becoming a Mary Sue, please tell me so I can stop that.**

**Construction criticism is very greatly appreciated. Like a lot. I like criticism. It helps me get better at this stuff, so gimme some.**

**Warning: Explicit mentions of suicide and depression- which are in fact very vital to this story and the first chapter. I will tell you know that a huge theme of this story is going to be _getting over_ these things, so don't start thinking the OC is going to be whiny and tragic the entire story. Trust me, she learns her lesson this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: This story has a 137% chance of occasional (maybe more- not sure yet) violence, gore, and death, so viewer discretion is advised. Also, since this story is about reincarnation and shit, there will probably be a talking baby. Or gifted five year old. Who knows. Fullmetal Alchemist is 1342% not mine, also. Beware hordes of OCs that may not last, and long wait for canon to hit. 115% chance of f-bombs and other naugty words. **

**Let's get to it, then.**

* * *

In life, I was nothing.

There are 7 billion people in our world. 7 billion people, each trudging through their own piece of life, and in case you didn't realize, 7 billion is quite a lot. I was one in those 7 billion. Just one. One tiny speck, a little piece of nothingness.

I was nothing. Normal. Average. Painstakingly, utterly, average.

Life should have been easy for me. I had so many great things, so many blessings... but I never made use of them. I was quite stupid like that.

Tell me, have you ever been so low that you wanted nothing more than to just disappear?

Once upon a time, I was happy. I had a few close friends, and I loved them with all my heart. I was by no stretch of the imagination popular, but that was one thing that I couldn't give a damn about. With those three friends of mine, I felt like I could do anything. Whenever I was with them, I felt like I was on top of the world. They made me invincible, in a way that I had been before.

There was this one girl in particular. She was the one who broke down my walls. Before she came along, I was that one timid girl in the back of the class who never spoke to anyone. Too many times had I been bullied, put down, until all I wanted was to curl up in the corner forever, to just have them all _forget _about me.

I still remember the day she found me like not a minute has gone by. She had been switched into my class, and her smile lit up the room like no other. When the teacher asked her where she wanted to sit, she looked right at me, and pointed to the empty seat saying "right there," with that same bright smile. At first, I didn't like how she was trying to disturb my peaceful bubble, but eventually, she got me to open up to her, and before either of us knew it, I had become part of her group of friends.

Little by little, I opened up to them. I changed. They made me into the person I had always wanted to be, even though I had never admitted it to myself. I was no longer that quiet girl who sat in the back of the class with her nose stuck in her book. No, instead I was the smiling, outgoing happy girl I had always wanted to be. Who still loved her books though- that would never change. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I was whacked with some magic wand and cured of all awkwardness. The process took years. My friends, however, were with me every step of the way, threatening the people who had once controlled me with their words and encouraging me. I could not have loved them for it, and everything else they did for me.

I still remember the day I grabbed her wrist.

We were on our way to lunch to meet up with the others, and I had excitedly grabbed her wrist to pull her along with me. She tried to hide it, but I noticed anyway.

I noticed the way she cringed when I had pressed down, the way she had almost cried out.

"Hey," I asked her cautiously, "are you alright?" She sent me a shaky smile.

"Yeah! Don't worry about me!" she had said. Frowning, I grabbed her arm and pulled up her long sleeves before she could react.

That was when all the random loose ends, which I had never even guessed had meant anything, came threading together to slap me in the face with the truth, and leave me wondering how, just how I hadn't known.

It suddenly made sense why she wore long sleeves everyday, why she always wore bracelets. Why she never went swimming with the rest of us, or wore anything that exposed much skin.

Her arm was completely covered in countless, straight, scars. These were the kind of scars they talked about once you got to middle school- _"kids," they would say, "make sure that if you ever need help you get it, never resort to hurting yourself"_\- though I had never seen them in real life. The kind that were done late at night when you locked yourself in the bathroom with a razor blade.

"Why?" I had asked her, my eyes never leaving her arms.

Immediately, with tears gathering in her eyes, she told me, as if she had been waiting all along. Her parents... were monsters. They abused her. Though they never touched her, what they said hurt her just as much. Every day they played with her head, placing horrible thoughts into it and making her believe they were true. They made her hate herself...

Every. Single. Day.

I hated her parents. I despised them. Like a lioness protecting her pride, I wanted nothing more than to just get her away from those monsters, to save her how she had saved me.

Unfortunately, rather than a lioness I was more of a tabby cat, and I was a coward.

"Don't do it again," I whispered in her ear as I held her in a tight hug, so sure that those simple words could help her. I believed so strongly that she would be alright. My childish faith led me to believe that my simple actions would be enough to show me how utterly loved she was.

How naive was I? Didn't I realize that those words were not enough? She needed far more than a hug and someone telling her not to, but I didn't give it to her.

She didn't let me know that... Instead, she simply hugged me back.

"I won't," she had whispered.

I was such an idiot for believing her.

I still remember the day I got the call. It had been a fairly good day. My friends and I had ditched school, like we seemed to do quite a lot, but she hadn't been there that day. I told myself to call her to make sure she was alright the second I had gotten back from school.

But I forgot. I forgot to make sure she was alright.

It wasn't until right before I went to bed that I remembered I was supposed to call her. I was supposed to make sure everything was alright. But I didn't.

The call reminded me.

The call sent me spiraling back into my own depths of hell.

The call informed me of my best friend's suicide.

One day, things had just gotten too much for her. Her three best friends just weren't enough to save her. And eventually, death became a better option than living in this _hell hole we call a world._

After she died, the rest of our group fell apart. Every time we saw each other, it was like we were experiencing her death all over again. For a long time, we tried. We really did. But the pain was too much, too unbearable.

And so, we just _stopped trying_.

And I was all alone, once again.

For a long time, I wondered if this was God's sick way of punishing me. That I deserved all this because I had been too damn stupid and distracted to remember to call to check in on my best friend. After all, if I did, she just might still be alive.

_It was all my fault._

I shut myself off from everyone and everything. My family would repeatedly try, in vain, to save me, to get me to move on. I would answer in silence or by lashing out at them.

And eventually, even they _stopped trying._

I went back into the girl I used to be, only this time people left me alone. It wasn't because they held respect for me, because I knew for a fact that they definitely didn't, and that the only difference from before I met _her_ was that they were _thinking_ the insults instead of _saying_ them.

And the only reason they didn't say them, was because they pitied me. I was the best friend of the girl who _killed herself._

I guess they still had just enough humanity left in their bones to not bully that girl.

But the pain only got stronger, and stronger, and strongerandstrongerandstronger. Without my friends to hold me up, I was breaking apart. I could feel myself _falling, shattering, slipping._

Life was pointless. Meaningless. There was no one in the world who needed me. I was unnecessary.

I was nothing.

And eventually, even _I_ _stopped trying._

And so, I followed her example.

One day, when my sister was out with her friends and my parents were both at work, I decided it was about time I joined my best friend. I was simply tired. Tired of hurting. I didn't know where the hell I would go in death, but I just knew, I _knew_, that wherever it was, it would be better than _here_.

And so, with the noose tied around my neck and the rope tied around my ceiling fan, I kicked the chair out from underneath me, and felt my life slowly being sucked away.

It was when my breathing ceased and my heart stopped beating that things got weird.

One second I was there, hanging from the ceiling, and the next... I was standing about a foot away from my own body, looking right into its lifeless eyes.

It was so fast, so quick, so unpredictable, like the snap of your fingers, or the fire of a gun.

I took in a sharp breath as I reached out to touch my own dead body, as if to make sure it was really there, and this wasn't some trick. But I could feel my own skin on my fingertips, I could see the details my own dead eyes staring off at nothing.

_I did this._

I plopped down onto the floor, landing on my knees, and brought my shaking hands up to my face. I sat there staring at my _transparent fucking hands _for a while, taking in deep, shaky, hysterical breaths.

"Oh God," I whispered, my voice tiny and timid. "Ohgodohgodohgodohgod." I looked back up at my own _fucking corpse, _taking in how for some reason I was still fucking here, seperate from my own dead body, when I was supposed to be gonegonegone.

"Why am I still here?! I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to _fucking be here!" _My voice was utterly hysterical, treading the line of insane. "I'm supposed to be gone- anywhere but fucking _here_!"

Tears streamed down my face, as I pounded my fists down on the floor repeatedly with all my strength. But it didn't hurt. It didn't hurt _at all_.

"Nononono. NO! This can't be happening!" Only making myself angrier about how I wasn't hurting myself by my furious punches, I finally stopped, grabbing my knees and pulling them into my chest. "This can't be happening. It's not possible. _It's not fucking possible." _The sobs took over my body about then, my body heaving up and down, hiccuping uncontrollably as more and more and more and more tears showed themselves. I eventually curled myself into a ball, sprawled across the floor. I cried and cried for who knows how long, until my eyes finally seemed to run out of water to give, and instead settled for staring blankly at my wall, looking anywhere but the body, _anywhere but the body._

Time seemed to tick by so slowly as I layed there on my bedroom floor, my mind numb as I tried to do anything but think.

I didn't want to think. I didn't want to realize what was happening. _Ididn'twanttoIdidn'tfuckingwantto_.

It was a while before I heard the door open as my parents both got home from their shared workplace.

"Honey!" my mom's kind and warm voice called. "We brought home Papa John's!"

Papa John's. Pizza. My favorite. _They brought home my favorite._

"Honey!" my mom called again before sighing when there was no answer.

"She's probably listening to that music of hers again," my dad said. I could practically hear the smile in his voice, that was no doubt about to disappear. My mom laughed that joyous laugh of hers before heading upstairs to get me. I could her hear footsteps as she trudged towards my room.

_Step._

_Step._

_Step._

"Don't come in." I whispered. "Don't come in, Mom, don't come in, _please don't come in."_

She came in anyway.

My eyes were fixed at the doorway, unable to move away from her. Her eyes though, were the opposite.

They didn't even see me.

They drifted right over the me that was curled up in a tight ball, not even acknowledging my presence. Instead, they drifted over to the other me. The me that was dead.

Her eyes widened in pure horror, before she fell to her knees, her body shaking uncontrollably.

And then she left out the most pain filled, terrified, and heart broken wail I had ever heard.

My dad was there in a second, probably terrified for my mother and whatever had made her scream that way.

He froze the second he saw into my room, though.

"Oh God," he whispered as he fell to his knees along with my mother.

"My baby, my baby. _Not my baby,"_ my mother's voice came, though it sounded nothing like normal.

"I'm right here, Mom. I'm right here. I'm right here! _Why can't you see m_e?" I begged the woman that I had tried to leave.

She just kept sobbing.

My dad held her, his body shaking as well from sobs as he moved Mom out of the room so she didn't have to look. I didn't follow them.

I didn't want to see them. I wasn't supposed to be able to see them. I was supposed to be in heaven, or hell, or some kind of purgatory, or just _something. This isn't what was supposed to happen in death_.

I squeezed my eyes shut, doing anything I could to block out my parents' cries. Maybe I fell asleep. Maybe my mind was just so numb, so empty, that time flew by as if I was asleep.

Either way, I wished I had never woken up.

When my eyes snapped open, the body was gone. The house was deathly silent. There was not one movement, one sound. It was suffocating.

I stayed in my room. I didn't leave it. Not for the next four days. After all, I wouldn't have to face my family if I stayed there. They were all too scared to even step close to my room.

But keeping myself holed up in that room didn't keep me from hearing my family's anguish. I could still hear my mother's loud wails late at night, and my father's best attempt at comforting her, though his voice never sounded much more stable than her's. I could hear my sister when she came home late into the night and her stumbled steps as she tried to make it to her bedroom.

But the worst thing was the _silence_. There was no talking. My sister was never home. My mother stared off into the distance. My father threw himself into his work. Even when they were together, no words were spoken.

The silence did nothing but leave me alone with my own thoughts. And since I was doing everything in my power to keep my mind off my family, that left my situation.

Why the hell was I still here? Is this what happens to everyone in death? Stuck in something far worse than what we were part of in life, nothing but an observer?

Before I died, one of the conclusions I reached was that everything in this damn universe is an illusion. There are no certainties. Who's to say that I was ever really alive? Who's to say that I ever died? That what I'm thinking, feeling, hearing, saying... who's to say any of it's real?

We live in a world where we truly know nothing. Knowelge itself is nothing but an illusion.

After all, in a world full of uncertainties, who wouldn't want to pretend that they know something? Who wouldn't want to find the truth? A certainty?

The only certainty in our world is that nothing is certain.

I suppose at one point I fooled myself into believing that death would solve everything. That I would find a ceratainty, and that everything would just turn out all right.

But it doesn't work that way.

It was on the third day I reached a revelation. Death was supposed to relieve my pain. I was supposed to be somewhere better. But I was _wrong_. Death was horrible. It was the worst pain I had ever experienced. There were no 'outs'. Even suicide wouldn't bring me the relief I craved.

I realized that pain was unavoidable. That I was trapped, enduring the most unimaginable pain in existence. There was no way out. I would never get out.

The funeral was held four days after my suicide. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to see people mourning me because I was to weak to stay with them. I didn't want a reminder of all the mistakes I had made.

But I went anyway. In my body that no one else could see, I went to the funeral area. It was as if something was pulling me there, like the least I could do for the people I had abandoned was be there for them at this time.

Even if they wouldn't know it.

I remember the way my sister showed up, her walk stumbled and her words slurred, and I knew immediately that she was drunk. Every night she came home she was. She was only 18.

I watched as my distant relatives snook disapproving glances at her out of the corner of their eyes, or my younger cousins looked at her with horrible pity in their eyes.

My mother and father sat in the first row, their eyes fixed to my coffin, and I wondered if they had even noticed my sister arrive.

Lots of people from my school showed up. I wanted to be angry with them; for making me hate myself and destroying me with their words, then showing up at my funeral like we were the closest of friends.

But when I looked into their regretful eyes, I couldn't seem to find it in me.

My two best friends were there as well, standing at the back rather than sitting down with the rest of the attendants.

"All of us have lost a beautiful girl," the preist began, my mom letting out a sob. "She will be missed so incredibly much. Today, I welcome her friends and family, or anyone else who shares with me the regret that we let such a wonderful girl slip through our fingers, to say goodbye."

Halfway through the ceremony, I overheard a girl from my school whispering to her boyfriend.

"I always wanted to be her friend, you know," she whispered, wiping her tears furiously. "But I was so scared. I always thought that if I reached out to her, they'd bully me too. And then she made those friends, and she was always so happy and glowing, sometimes it took my breath away." A bitter smile made it's way to her face.

"And now we've lost two of those four girls, both to suicide. What great classmates we were, huh?" Her last words were sarcastic and obviously cut into her boyfriend, as he let out a choked sound and buried his head into her shoulder. She did the same.

They didn't stop crying for the rest of the funeral.

Watching those two, I think I realized for the first time that we were all just kids. Most of the time, we didn't realize what we were doing. We were all impulsive brats, who thought they knew what they were doing but truly had no clue.

We were but kids.

I kept my eyes away from my best friends and family the best I could. I couldn't bear to look at them any more. I found myself wondering just how this preist had so many things to say about me, a girl he had never met.

"She lived a great life, surrounded by people who loved her. All of us here gather to celebrate and rejoice the time she spent here with us."

After that sentence from the preist, I heard a scoff come from behind me. I knew immediately who it was- the sarcastic tone and low yet feminine voice I knew so well that belonged to one of my best friends.

"'A great life?' 'Celebrate it?' You've got to be fucking kidding me," she spoke up, causing everyone's eyes to move from the preist to her. Mine stayed fixed ahead. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't.

"She spent most of her life with no friends. Score 1 for her. She was also bullied and ridiculed by half the kids at our school, who by the way all just show up at her funeral like they were best friends forever. Score 2. When she finally did make some friends, when she finally was _happy_, guess what the fuck happened? The one that gave her that happiness _fucking killed herself!_ _Score 3!_ What a peachy life!"

"Hana, stop it," my other best friend whispered. At this point I couldn't look away. It was unbearable to hear them talk this way but not even look at their faces.

My friend grabbed Hana's arm, gently tugging it to try to get her to stop. She only brushed her off.

"You know what? No! These bastards need to hear this! She did not live a happy life, no matter how much you try to fool yourself into thinking she did! Maybe she would have been able to keep going after Maggie died, but you weren't there for her! None of you bitches sitting here talking about 'celebrating her life' did anything for her! Maybe you tried at one point, but there is no way you can honestly say that you did every fucking thing you could! Becuase if you did, she wouldn't be fucking dead!"

"Hana, stop it! Now!" My friend grabbed Hana's arms, holding her back from practically pouncing on the crowd of people, which she looked ready to do at any moment.

Hana thrashed violently. "SHE'S DEAD BECAUSE THE PEOPLE SITTING HERE DIDN'T DO EVERYTHING THEY COULD TO SAVE HER! So how fucking dare you talk about celebrating her life that _you could have saved_?!"

"HANA!"

"But I'm no different, am I? Julie and I... We left her when she needed us most, and all because we were too damn weak. She wasn't happy. Her life was short, and sad, and full of torture and emptiness. And it's too fucking late to do anything about it now. How do you celebrate a life in which the person living it had no reason to celebrate? None of us have any reason to celebrate. She's gone. She's dead. She's never coming back. And none of us, not even me, did anything to stop that."

Hana's eyes turned vacant and lifeless towards the end. She didn't even seem to be aware of the countless tears streaming down her face. But she didn't let out a sob. She didn't make another sound. She just fell to her knees, her eyes never losing that vacant look as they stared at nothing in particular.

Julie collapsed with Hana, her arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace. Though where Hana didn't make a sound, Julie was the opposite. Her wails were loud and painfilled, as she sobbed enough for both of them.

They sat there on the ground, and I faintly recognized my feet moving closer and closer to my only two friends who were still alive. I fell to my knees directly in front of the two, allowing the tears to come that I had shut out for the past four days.

"I'm so sorry," I muttered, wrapping my arms around my two close friends who were stuck together like glue. I buried my head into them, allowing myself to believe that they could feel me as much as I could feel them.

My words caught in my throat. "Oh Julie... Hana... I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

For a little I fooled myself into believing that I could get through to them. That some of my warmth would reach them, and that it would comfort them, letting them know that I was there, that I loved them, that they didn't do anything wrong and that it was all _me_ who made the mistake.

But saying sorry doesn't fix everything. Hugs won't magically make people feel better. Especially not when you're dead.

Because I realized that day that there's a reason no one believes in ghosts.

I zoned out after that. The funeral went on, once people were over Hana's outburst. I didn't listen to anything else. I shut it all out. I left before the funeral even ended.

I walked all the way back home. I don't really know why I went back home instead of leaving and never coming back. Maybe it was because I felt too guilty leaving my family alone, even if they didn't know I was there. Maybe it was because I was too scared to leave my house, my safety blanket, especially when I had no idea what layed beyond it.

It was a while before my parents came home with their distant and numb eyes. It looked as if they wanted to cry, but had finally run out of tears. I didn't follow them into the house. Instead, I sat in my driveway, not daring to go back into that house.

Things didn't get better. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days into weeks. Eventually I forgot just how much time had passed. Or maybe I stopped caring.

My sister barely came home. And when she did, she always stumbled into the house, her words slurred, reeking of alcohol. She partied all night, slept with a new boy every day. Anything to get her mind off her dead younger sister, right? A wedge drove itself between her and my parents, and I knew that in my suicide they had not only lost me, but her as well.

It was the day Hana and Julie came over that things changed for me. My sister was the one who answered the door, still drunk after one of her parties. I remember the shock on Julie's and Hana's faces when they took in the state of my sister. My parent's invited the two inside, putting on their best smiles, though everyone knew they were fake. They showed my friends to my room.

My parents didn't go in with them. They hadn't been in my room since that night.

But I did. I followed them all the way inside.

Hana and Julie stepped into my room with blank faces. Everything inside of it was exactly how I left it. Nothing had been touched. The look on their faces was nothing short of horrified.

"This is all our fault," Julie whispered, sitting cautiously down on my bed.

"Yeah. Yeah it is," Hana added, standing stiffly.

"No," I tried to say. "Don't you dare blame yourselves. You weren't the ones who killed yourself. You weren't the one who was too much of a coward to keep fighting!"

I felt something inside of me break. I was sick and tired of seeing the people I loved blame themselves for my mistakes. This wasn't their fault, so why couldn't they see that?!

"Sometimes I wonder if maybe everything would work out better if I just did what her and Maggie did..." Hana said, staring up at the ceiling fan.

My eyes widened in shock.

Julie leaned up in an instant, staring at Hana with wide eyes, before her eyes softened. "Yeah. Me too."

"No! You two can't do that! You're supposed to be the strong ones! You're supposed to be happy without me!" I yelled.

They didn't hear me.

"God damn it, listen to me! Don't you dare do what I did, you hear me? DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!"

"Hana! Julie! I'm right here! Why can't you see me? Why? Why is this happening?"

"STOP IGNORING ME! FUCKING ANSWER ME ALREADY! DON'T YOU DARE HURT YOURSELVES! LISTEN TO ME!"

"Please, I'm begging you, please please don't do what I did. Please, please, please..."

I don't know how long I yelled at the two of them. I don't know how long they stayed in my room, staring silently up at the ceiling fan that stayed completely still.

I just kept screaming. And screaming. And screaming and screaming and screaming.

But they couldn't hear me. No one could.

"AHHHHH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, the sound echoing throughout the house. But only for me. No one else could hear.

I punched the wall. Over and over and over. But no matter how many times I did, or how much force I put into it, there was no dent left, no pain in my hand.

I didn't exist anymore.

Eventually I slid down the wall, collapsing on the floor, and just stared at my two best friends, who hadn't moved throughout my entire outburst.

"Please, please don't make the same mistakes I did. I want you to hear me, I want to be able to tell you two I love you and that I shouldn't have left, but I can't, because I'm fucking dead! Just live... for me."

As I layed there on the ground, feeling lower than I ever had in my life, I remember wishing that there was a way to kill yourself, even if you're already dead.

"But wouldn't that just be making the same mistake you already did?"

A voice echoed from the other side of the room, and I spun my head around at lightning speed. Someone had talked, and it sounded like they were talking to _me_!

"No..." I muttered, my eyes already filling with tears as I stared at the girl I thought I would never see again.

"Hey Carrot Top," she said gently, using my old nickname.

"Maggie?" I asked incerdulously, my eyes never leaving her face.

She let out a small laugh. "Well, of course! Who else would come to visit you in your death?"

I only stared at her, not really believing this was happening.

The smile faded from her face a little. "What, no greeting?"

"Wh- why are you here?"

"Don't tell anyone, but I'm breaking the rules to be here. You're not exactly in top condition," she said, a sad look on her face.

"B-breaking the rules? You mean... there's more to death than this?"

She laughed again. "Carrot Top, death is just like life in one aspect. It's _limitless_."

"Then where the hell have you been?! I thought I was all alone! I thought... I thought I would never be able to see you again!" I yelled at her.

"Well, for starters, I've been wandering the Earth. Seeing the things I could never see when I was alive. And let me tell you, it can actually be really fun being dead!"

"Why... why didn't you come until now?"

"You needed to see the affects of your suicide. You needed to see that it was a mistake."

My eyes widened is shock and anger. "You're kidding, right? Look who's talking! Don't you realize that you're the reason I killed myself in the first place?! Everything changed when I lost you! I couldn't live anymore! This is_ all your fault!_"

I don't know exactly why I lashed out at her; all of the anger from the past week that I hadn't been able to vent was just building up and up inside. But all that anger vanished when I saw the tears gathering in her eyes.

"I know, Carrot. Trust me, I know that more than anyone. And I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have left you," she choked out. I stayed silent for a moment, realizing that she regretted her own suicide just as much as I did.

"It's my fault."

"What is, dear Carrot?"

"It's my fault you're dead."

The simple words seemed to echo around the deathly silent house, and I realized I hated the look of pity Maggie gave me in that moment. I didn't deserve to be pitied.

"No, it's not," she said simply, giving my cheek a pat. "It was my decision, and I regret it. It's no ones fault but mine that I'm dead."

I wiped furiously at the tears gathering in my eyes, trying to ignore the selfish feeling of relief welling up inside of me.

"So... what happens now?" I asked after a while.

"Well, you go where you need to be," she answered with a small smile.

"...And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Just as vulgar as ever, I see," she said with a giggle. "It means that things get better. Once you let go, once you forgive yourself, you can move on. You can find happiness."

"Then why are you still here?"

She shrugged. "My place is here on Earth. But you, Carrot, you don't belong here. You never did."

"You're still being incredibly cryptic."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's only because I don't know much more than you do."

"Well then, you're a huge help. So how on Earth would I do this whole 'letting go' thing in the first place?"

My eyes wandered over to our two best friends, who were still staring at the ceiling in silence, oblivious to the conversation going on around them.

Maggie followed my eyes. "Do you believe in them?" she asked quietly.

"Of course I do," I said without hesitation.

"Then believe that they'll get better. Believe that they'll push through this."

"But I couldn't," I reminded her, my voice quiet.

"But they're not you, are they?"

"Maybe not, but-"

"_Believe in them_."

I blinked, astounded at the sternness on Maggie's face. I had never hear her sound so sure of herself before.

A moment later I let out a small sigh. "Yeah, they always were the strongest ones in our little group, weren't they?"

Maggie smiled. "Yep. We were always the weak ones, in all honesty."

"You know," Hana's voice cut through our conversation, causing Maggie and I to snap our heads towards her. "Sometimes I feel like they're still here. Like they're watching over us still, eagerly waiting for all of us to smile again." She sighed. "It's probably just wishful thinking, though."

Julie looked at her curiously, before smiling slightly.

"Me too."

At those words, I felt like a million worries had been lifted off of my chest.

"I told you so," Maggie said, with her usual cocky smile.

"And you always were the smarter one," I replied, smiling slightly for the first time in weeks.

And that's when I laughed.

I don't quite know how, because at that point I remember feeling as if I had forgotten how to laugh. But I did it anyways. It was long, and loud, and the happiest thing I had done in days.

It was hopeful.

"You were right, Maggie! They're gonna be fine! I just know it! My sister and parents too; they're all gonna be fine! Probably not tomorrow, or anytime soon, but they're gonna get through this! I know it!"

I beamed as I looked at Maggie, who only smiled slightly in return.

"Isn't that what I've been telling you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You've always got to brag a bit, don't you?"

"Just a little. After all, I've got so much to brag about," she joked, sending me a wink. I smiled again, before Maggie asked me another question.

"Do you regret it?"

I immediately knew what she was talking about. What else could it be.

"Of course," I replied instantly, my voice cracking.

"Then why? Why did you kill yourself?"

"Because I'm a coward."

Maggie narrowed her eyes. "I _said_, why did you do it?"

"Because I'm a coward!"

"No! Why did you kill yourself?!" Maggie pressed, yelling at the top of her lungs.

I paused, tears gathering in my eyes once again. "Because I thought things would get better," I breathed.

"Correct," Maggie said, smiling. "Now tell me, have things gotten much better?"

I shook my head quickly. "Not at all."

"But are you going to run away again?"

My eyes widened.

Running away... that's all I had been doing my whole life. I relied so much on running away.

But I didn't want to run away anymore. I want to be able to stand on my own two feet, and feel proud of myself.

"Or are you going to push through? Are you going to keep sitting here moping, wishing that things had been different, or are you going to get out there and do something with your pathetic life? You can't do anything here. So why would you stay?"

It was silent for a good minute before I spoke again. "I'm scared, Maggie. I don't know what's out there. I don't know what's going to happen, to me, or to the ones I love. You know that I've always been scared of the unknown."

"So _face_ it," she pressed, her gaze stern. "Overcome that fear. Become the person you never could in this life."

"...How?"

She smiled. "Promise me, promise me that wherever you go after this, you'll keep going. You won't cave. You'll stay strong, and push through whatever come your way. Promise not only for me, for Julie and Hana, for your sister and parents, but for the people in your future who are going to come to love you just as much as we did. Promise that you will _never_ quit again."

I stared at her in awe for a moment, before nodding my head quickly. "Of course."

"Say it."

"I, Carrot Top, hereby swear to never quit again," I said, with a small smirk, holding my hand to my heart. Maggie laughed and took two wide steps towards me, quickly engulfing me in a tight embrace.

"I love you a lot, you know that, right?" she asked cautiously.

I buried my face into her hair, realizing just how _real_ she felt. She was dead, but she was here, helping me. "Everyone does," I whispered back jokingly. She laughed again, but this time it sounded almost like a choke.

She leaned back a little to look in my eyes. "I can't tell you how glad I am that I talked to that shy girl in the back of the glass all those years ago."

I smiled back. "Me too, Mags. Thank you. For everything."

She closed her eyes slowly, as if bracing herself for what she was about to say. "Go say goodbye."

I blinked. "What?"

She sighed. "Moving on means moving on. You have to let go."

I looked once again towards Julie and Hana. "I believe in them," I whispered, more to myself than to Maggie. I looked back over to Maggie before nodding. "Okay."

Her eyes widened. "Wow. I thought it was going to take more convincing than that."

I chuckled a little as I stepped back and walked slowly towards my friends. Without turning back to look at Maggie, I answered her. "Yeah, well, you've always had a way with words. You were the only one who could ever get me to change my mind on something."

"And you've always been the most stubborn person I've ever met in my life..." she muttered. I rolled my eyes before leaning down to my two friends, who laid across my bed.

"Goodbye," I whispered, leaning in to kiss the two of them on the forehead. I paused when I noticed Julie grow a questioning look and Hana reached a hand up to her forehead where I had just kissed her.

I grinned. They had felt it. I knew it. I had been able to give them just a little of reassurance, no matter how tiny. I began walking towards the door of my room, shooting one last glance to the two. "I love you guys. Thank you."

I bounded down the stairs quickly, Maggie following close behind. My dad, mom, and sister were surprisingly all in the living room together, staring at the tv with dead eyes. I ran towards my older sister first, throwing my arms around her.

"I know we didn't always get along, but thank you for being the best older sister I could have ever asked for," I whispered in her ear, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"Mom, Dad," I began, feeling the tears gathering in my eyes again, "I know I haven't always been the best daughter, especially the last couple of months. And I know that you were always trying your hardest to help me. Even if I didn't realize that before, I do now. I may be dead, but my sister isn't. Love her for me. Don't let her go. Be there for each other. I have a feeling that this is it, and that after this I won't be seeing any of you again." I paused, feeling my throat begin to close up. "I don't know where I'll be going, but I promise I will _always_ be your little girl."

I leaned forward to hug the two around the neck, pretending once again that they could feel me. My body shook with sobs. "I love you guys," I choked out.

A few minutes later, I leaned back and felt Maggie grab my hand comfortingly.

"I have to go soon," she whispered.

"Why?"

"Well, I'm actually not supposed to be here in the first place. You're supposed to move on on your own," she replied sheepishly. I stared at her with wide eyes before laughing a little.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't exactly expect you to become little miss innocent, even in death. You always were a rule breaker."

"Just like you," she teased, before her face turned serious. "Listen, I really do need to get back. Some advice: when you let go, you'll meet someone. Make sure to tell him nothing but the truth. That guy likes honesty. Anyway, he's going to judge you. Try to make a good impression, because he pretty much decides what the hell happens to you. Oh, and don't let him scare you. I think the twisted shit feeds off it or something."

I nodded. "Alright so tell the truth, make him like me, and don't be intimidated. Sounds easy enough."

She scoffed. "Yeah, let's see you say that when you come face to face with him."

I raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Well I need to face my fears, right? Maybe this guy is the first step."

"A step that's 50 feet in the air and you have to climb up a steep wall to get to-"

"Okay, seriously, I think you're scaring me more than you're helping me at this point."

"Right, right. One more thing-"

She was cut off when she literally started glowing.

"...Wow. How original."

"No time for sassy remarks!" Maggie cut in, grabbing my hands in hers. "Listen, knowing you, you're going to be sent to one crazy ass world. You need to prepare yourself."

"What are you saying? Sent to another world? And how do I even prepare myself-"

She grabbed my face in her hands, looking sternly into my eyes, the glow around her only becoming stronger.

"_Fight_," she whispered. "Fight for the things you will come to love. Don't let them be taken away from you. _Prepare yourself_."

I nodded, deciding not to question her. Besides, I was barely processing her words. All I could think about was-

"Are you going to leave me?" I asked quietly, my voice shaking. The corners of her lips tipped upwards slightly.

"I'll never leave you," she said sadly. "This was my chance to make up for all the pain I've caused you. This is my redemption."

She paused, leaning in to plant a tiny kiss to my forehead. "Goodbye, Carrot Top."

I shut my eyes tightly, trying to block out the tears that had been coming too many times. And when I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

"Maggie?" I called, voice cracking. "Maggie, where are you? You can't leave me, Maggie. You can't leave."

I looked frantically around the room, finding no trace of my dear friend who had been here only mere seconds ago.

"You already left me once, don't you dare do it again, Maggie!" I demanded, angry tears gathering in my eyes, my hands balling into fists.

I paced back and forth, before turning my furious gaze up to the ceiling. "Hey, bastard! Maggie told me all about you! How you like the damn truth, well here you go! You are a horrible being who does nothing to stop the suffering of this world! And you know what? I'm fucking done. I'm done! Just take me out already!"

I screamed furiously when nothing happened. "What, you're still going to ignore me? What else do you have to take away from me?! You've taken everything! _You fucking bastard! _I'm done with your shit! TAKE ME AWAY! You hear me? I'm letting go! I'M LETTING GO, YOU FUCKTARD!"

I paused, my breaths coming in and out quickly, my face red from fury. My gaze shifted over to my family, still sitting on the couch, still staring blankly at the tv.

I stared at them. I stared at those three people I had brought unimaginable pain to.

"I'm letting go," I repeated, my voice much quieter and echoing in the silence of my own house, my eyes still fixed on the people I loved most in this world. I faintly registered the sound of my multiple tears hitting the ground. "I'm letting go."

And that was when my own glow started.

I let out a choked scoff. "About time, fuckface," I muttered, looking back up to the ceiling, before looking back to my loved ones.

"I'm so sorry," I told my family again. "I'm sorry I've brought you so much pain. I'm sorry I quit. I'm sorry for not fighting hard enough. I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry for being for a horrible daughter and sister. But I promise you," I paused, my voice getting caught in my throat.

"I will never make those mistakes again."

I had never meant any words more in my life.

"I love you," I told them one last time, the glow around me becoming almost blinding now.

And, in those last few seconds before I was whisked away, I could have sworn I saw my family's eyes flicker over to me, with the tiniest of smiles on their faces.

* * *

**Welcome back- depending on if you made it through that. If you did, I officially love you.**

**This chapter is more of a prologue than anything. Why am I calling it Chapter 1 then, instead of Prologue you may be asking? **

**Simply because then the next chapter would have that thing where it goes 2. Chapter 1 cause fanfiction numbers the chapters and every other chapter would be one off, and I just can't deal with that. I can't. It's physically impossible.**

**As you can tell, I have not killed myself, nor have I known anyone who has (though I and a few friends of mind have been diagnosed with depression). This means that my portrayal of suicide and how people are affected by it could be completely off, but this is somewhat how I think it would go down.**

**One of the topics tackled here- one suicide leading to another- is a real word issue, commonly addressed as "cluster suicides." They generally take place among teenagers. One person's suicide either gives another inspiration to do the act themself when they were previously too scared, or the suicide sends someone else into a deep depression where they can end up taking their lives as well. Learning about these cluster suicides was what inspired this character's backstory. I also wanted to write a story showing a person's regret of their own suicide, and thought the perfect way to do that would to have them stuck on the Earth to see the pain they have caused others. **

**And thus, Carrot Top was born. Not her real name by the way, just a nickname. Can any of you guess why she's called Carrot Top? **

**Sorry for the long author's notes this chapter, but before I go, I'm going to end this on a cheesy but serious note.**

**If any of you are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, _please_ get help. As a person who has been there, I can tell you it gets better- but only if you put in the effort. The world will not magically change for you one day, and as cruel as that may sound, it's true. _You_ have to be the one to make the change, otherwise things may only get worse.**

**And if any of you are scared to get help, scared of what your friends and family will think of you if they know, then come talk to me. Once again, cheesy, I know, but it really does help to talk. And sometimes it's easier to do that with some random face over the internet than anyone else.**

**'Cause I love you guys.**

**Signing off, and see you next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

When I opened my eyes, there was nothing. White streched out for as far as I could see, and in every direction. There wasn't even a way to differentiate between the ground and the air, since it all looked the exact same.

My hands reached out frantically as I hoped they would stumble upon something, _anything_.

I had always been afraid of nothingness, and here I was, surrounded by it.

"Hello."

My wide eyes spun around to find the source of the voice. It was light and both innocent yet menacing in a way that could not be explained, as it echoed through the nothingness.

A figure sat casually in front of me, as if it did not have a care in the world. It wore a grin that was much too wide for a regular human. It was completely white, and would have blent in completely with the background, if it was not for the black shadow surrounding it.

I narrowed my eyes untrustingly at the figure, though in a way I was relieved that I was not all alone in the strange place, no matter who the company was.

"What is this place?" I asked the figure, trying to keep my voice stable, though I knew without a doubt that I was failing.

Its grin only grew wider. "I've heard many refer to it as the 'gate'."

"Yeah, well that tells me nothing, Buddy."

"I suppose it does not."

I raised my eyebrows, waiting for it to explain, but sighed when I realized it didn't plan to. "Alright then, who the hell are you, Mr. Mysterious?"

"Ah, so glad you asked!" The figure cried, throwing its hands up in the air. "I am known by many names. I am the world. I am the universe. I am God. I am the truth. I am all. I am one. And most importantly..." it paused, raising its arm to point directly at me.

"I am _you_."

I gulped, feeling my heart beat speed up despite my best efforts to stay calm. This guy was terrifying, and I hoped to God that my fear wasn't showing.

But this creepy guy here _was God_.

Good thing I was never much of a believer in the first place.

I shut my eyes tightly, giving myself three second to be terrified, before I opened them again, promising to be brave for my parents, for my sister, for Hana and Julie and Maggie. I promised them I would be strong.

"Why am I here, then, '_Carrot Top_'? I asked mockingly.

The figure laughed. "You may call me Truth, girl. Most do."

"You didn't answer the question," I pointed out.

"That's because I'm not the one who's supposed to," Truth replied, still smiling in a way that sent shudders up my spine.

I stared at it in confusion, before I realized just what it was getting at. "Me," I realized. "I'm supposed to answer that question."

"You figured it out quite quickly! Now tell me, just why are you here?"

My mind raced as I thought back to what Maggie had told me earlier, no doubt about this guy. He likes the truth.

The truth.

I looked at Truth with a new resolve in my eyes. "I want another chance," I told him, my voice coming out stronger than I thought it would.

The look on its face grew amused. "And why should I give you that? You threw your first chance away, and abandoned all those that cared about you. You couldn't even let go on your own, your friend had to come help you! So why should I give you, of all people, a second chance?"

I blinked, realizing just how little I _deserved_ that second chance. It was right; I had completely wasted my first life. I had left a negative impact on the world rather than a good one. I didn't deserve a second chance.

But that didn't make me want it any less.

"I don't know," I sputtered out. "I honestly don't. I don't know why I would deserve a second chance, because I can't even promise you that I'll make use of it. But I do know that I will _try_. That I will never make the same mistakes I made ever again. And I want that second chance more than I've ever wanted anything before. So _please_, I beg you, please give it to me."

Truth laughed then, long and hard, causing me to narrow my eyes at it again.

"Wow, glad to see you find me pouring my heart out funny," I remarked, crossing my arms.

"I find _you_ funny, little girl. Maybe I will give you this second chance you want so much."

My eyes widened as I smiled. "Really?!"

"Yes, I think I will. But it will come with a price."

"Anything!" I replied instantly. "Take anything you want! Anything at all!"

Truth grinned, showing it's wide teeth, and the action almost made me regret my words. "Good to know you approve."

I gulped, wondering just what the guy planned to take. "You know, you're not exactly what I imagined when I thought of God," I admitted.

"Good," it said simply. Using the break in conversation, I turned around to see if this place truly was nothing but white nothingness. I paused when I saw two dark doors stretching up, contrasting against the white around them.

"What the hell," I started, my voice light with awe, "are those?"

"Those," Truth said, standing up and taking a few steps forward, "are what will take you to your second chance, as you call it."

I looked over at Truth, as it stood watching me. "You haven't taken anything yet," I reminded it quietly.

Suddenly, Truth was in my face, it's grin so wide I wondered how it was even possible. "Oh, but I will! The things you love most will all be taken from you in due time! Just be patient, little girl!"

I backed up quickly, tripping over my own two feet and landing on my butt, where I stared up at Truth with fearful eyes. I looked over to the gates, my eyes widening with more fear when I saw them opening, with little black hands beginning to reach out of it, creeping their way towards me.

I screamed as they grabbed me, dragging me back towards the gate. I could hear my heart hammering in my ears, adrenaline going wild as I dug my nails into the ground, trying to shake the hands' grip on me.

But their grip only tightened, I was pulled closer to those horrid gates, and I watched with terrified eyes as Truth only smirked as I was pulled away. Right before I was dragged away, I heard him say: "Normally when this happens I erase your memories, but I'll think I'll change things up a little bit. Good luck, girl."

And then the doors shut, surrounding me in nothing but darkness.

I found myself missing the white.

* * *

**First things first, t****hanks justaislinn and SkyFullOfRoses for reviewing!**

**Much, much shorter chapter, I know, but it didn't feel right to have anything after the ending of this one. Next chapter will be much longer, and I already have a portion of it written out.**

**So, I'm curious, how do you guys like the OC so far? Do you think she had a fairly good and likable personality that's actually relatable? I really hope so. Things are starting to turn around for our little carrot though, and she's met Truth, who's the scary guy Maggie was talking about last chapter.**

**Please review, favorite, and follow! **

**Obfuscati0n signing off, and see you next chapter.**


	3. Chapter 3

You know, when I had killed myself only to be brought back as a ghost who couldn't do anything, talked to my dead best friend who had also committed suicide, and then talked to some weird God person who called himself Truth, I thought things couldn't get much weirder for me.

Yeah, I was wrong.

God damn it, the universe just loves to prove me wrong, doesn't it?

After being whisked away by those damn creepy snake hand things, I stood in complete darkness for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything, or hear anything. It was as if all five senses had been ripped away from me, and all that was left was my own thoughts. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced.

I doubted I even had a body anymore. After all, if I did, I should've been able to feel something, right? I was my own worst fear. Nothingness.

And you thought you were nothing before, my mind reminded me. Look at you now.

It's funny how some of the things that tear you up inside seem like sunshine and unicorns compared to the things you go through later. _Hey, at least this will help prepare me prepare for my second chance! I mean, I'm facing my biggest fear here, that's gotta mean something, right?_

That is if Truth was even telling the truth... pun intended.

I would have laughed at myself if I could.

Oh, but wait, this isn't even the weird part yet! Nope, it gets fucking weirder. 'Cause my life/death/reincarnation/whatever the hell this is can always get weirder.

I was in the middle of considering whether it was wrong for a vegetarian to eat animal crackers, when I was suddenly surrounded by bright light again, causing me to cry out in shock. Voices echoed around my head, my brain still too fuzzy to pick up what they were saying. I couldn't tell how many people there were, but I faintly recognized my body being passed around-

_Hey, wait a second. I weigh a good 130 pounds, how the hell are these people passing me around as if I weigh as much as a baby?_

My vision started to adjust slightly, and I could barely make out a face that was staring down at me, her eyes wide with love.

I realized just how beautiful she was once my eyes fully adjusted, though my eyesight was still strangely... fuzzy, almost. The woman had dark blue eyes and light brown hair that was tickling my ear as she stroked my face, her pink lips curved at the edges in adoration.

I raised an eyebrow at this strange yet beautiful woman, opening my mouth to say something like 'hey you crazy lady, you mind not stroking my face like I'm the messiah? It's quite creepy', though it came out more like 'gaaluu arahh buu'.

My eyes narrowed in frustration at myself, wondering if these people had drugged me or some shit, and why this woman was looking at me as if I were her-

_Oh._

As if I were her child.

Yeah, this was the weird part.

I should've seen it coming; it would have been fairly obvious to most people other than me. I had obviously been reincarnated. This was my second chance. This is what I was begging that bastard for. My only questions were why Truth had left me with my memories, and what he planned to take from me. Was this all just a game to him? A movie he could sit down and watch with some popcorn?

_Everything you love will be taken from you in due_ was the threat Truth had made.

And I'm not sure I was ready to give up everything I loved a second time. It had almost broken me the first.

My train of thoughts were broken when I realized that the woman- who thinks she's my _mother_\- was humming a comforting song as she rocked my infant body back and forth.

"What do you want to name her?" A man with pitch black asked, his brown eyes glistening as he rested his hand on the woman's shoulder, the same loving look in his eyes as he looked at me.

"Arabella," the woman said, her eyes closing briefly before she looked up to the man I assumed was my father. "Do you like it?"

The man grinned, planting a kiss to her forehead. "I love it. It's beautiful," he said, a wistful tone in his voice. "Hell, she's beautiful!" He laughed then, planting a small kiss to my forehead as well.

"I can't believe she's ours," the man whispered. _That's because I'm not_. "She's magnificent." He paused, looking up to the woman. "She looks just like you, Elena."

"You think so?" the woman named Elena asked, grasping one of my tiny fingers in her hand. "I think she's going to grow up to look just like her father."

The man laughed."Who knows? Either way, we're gonna be a family now, aren't we, little Arabella?" he asked, his voice changing into that high pitched voice people used when talking to babies, causing my face to scrunch up in displeasure.

Elena laughed, throwing her head back slightly, the sound echoing throughout the small room. "Looks like our little girl isn't big on baby talk," she pointed out.

The man stood, a bit surprised, before shaking his head with a small smile on his face. "Guess not. I'll make sure not to do it again."

"You better not, Darach. Don't want to make her hate you before she can even talk back," Elena teased, grinning at him slightly.

"Oh shush Elena, she'll love me," he countered.

_We'll see about that._

My mom- _Elena, she's not my mom_\- laughed quietly, as if trying not to make too much noise that would disturb me. "I'm gonna give her the world," she said, her voice so quiet I could barely hear it. Her eyes practically sparkled as she looked down at me, as cheesy as it sounds. "Spoil her rotten. Give her everything she could ever want. Nothing in the world is ever gonna hurt my baby, not if I can do anything about it."

Darach smiled slightly, leaning down so his head rested in Elena's hair. "She's gonna turn out a complete brat if you do that," he teased.

Elena snickered, pushing his head away. "Like you don't want to do the same."

"Of course I do," he said, causing Elena to look at him with slightly surprised eyes. "We won't let anything hurt her."

_Empty promises_, my mind said before I could stop it.

I wanted to be back with my real parents, not with these Elena and Darach people. I knew that they loved me, that much was evident in their eyes, but they had to. They thought that I was their daughter, after all.

Yet to me, they were but two strangers who I was dependent on. And I hated that.

I hated being dependent on others. I had always done everything in my power to stop myself from becoming dependent on others, which was why I was always alone before Maggie came into my life. Unknowingly, though, I had become so dependent on Maggie that once she was gone I couldn't even bear to live anymore.

I would rely on no one in this new life. After all, it was my fatal mistake in my old one.

Funny, though, how I had ended up in the most dependent form possible. A baby. A fucking_ baby_. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't walk, or talk. For fuck's sale, I couldn't even lift up my head! It would be years before I would be able to do things on my own.

My tiny fists clenched up, my conflicting emotions finally becoming too much for my little body as I let out another wail. I was so furious, confused and overwhelmed. I could barely make out any shapes other than things right in front of me, and everything was just so damn wrong.

Elena and Darach cooed at me, rubbing my back until I had finally ran out of tears to cry.

I promised myself that was the last time I would show weakness.

* * *

The days started to fly by.

Elena and Darach were the picture perfect parents. Darach was loud and funny, and always cracking jokes, while Elena was a bit sarcastic and teasing, but loving all the same. They weren't my parents, though- just two strangers who thought I was their daughter.

I had already disappointed my real parents, and broken their hearts. The least I owed them was to never replace them. I couldn't replace them.

When my eyes started to develop, I noticed just how small our house was. By what I could tell, it only consisted of two small bedrooms where Elena, Darach, and I slept, and a small bathroom. It wasn't in the best shape either- with tattered bed sheets and nothing but wooden surfaces. The state of our house, which was more like a shack than anything, made me wonder if I had been reborn into a third world country. Though Elena and Darach were white as white can be, which didn't quite match, they easily could've moved here. Or there could be plenty of white third world countries out there that I'm simply to ignorant to know about. Either one.

Anyway, I kept the promise I made myself that day. I didn't show any weakness, not again. I didn't cry, or wail, or even sniff. I barely even moved, other than when I was trying to lift my head up or something to try to hurry up my development as a baby.

I didn't smile, either. Side effect of being depressed, I guess. It terrified Elena and Darach. I learned just how much on day 92- when I was turning 3 months.

"What do you want me to do, Elena?! Something is wrong! She doesn't smile, or laugh, or cry, or goddamn anything! All she does is stare off at the distance, or try to get up! Babies don't try that hard to get up, Elena, not all the damn time! It's not normal!"

"There is nothing wrong with my baby, Darach! She's fine!"

"You're lying to yourself, and we both know it!"

Silence.

"You're wrong, she's fine, she's fine, she's fine, she's fine, I know my baby will be just fine, you're just overreacting Darach, you're just overreacting!..."

"...We'll call for the doctor tomorrow."

A sob.

"Okay."

The doctor didn't help. He came the next day, smiling warmly at me as he checked me over. He told my parents afterwards that 'there's nothing wrong with your child from what I can see. If there are any problems, they're mental rather than physical. We won't be able to identify those until she is much older. Give it time.'

That time it was Darach that let out a sob.

_Mental rather than physical_... the simple words echoed over and over again for a long time in my head.

If only he knew how right he was.

I had made myself numb. I knew I was hurting others in the process, but I was selfish. People had hurt me in my previous life. My sister had always been distant. Maggie left me. Hana and Julie stopped trying. My classmates put me down.

I knew it was stupid to act like I had been the only one who was hurt, but in my deteriorating mind set, it made perfect sense. The reason I was in this mess was because of them. None of this would have happened if they hadn't hurt me. I would still be at home, with my real parents, laughing with a cup of hot chocolate, me and my mother forcing Dad to watch Glee with us, laughing every time he cringed when a musical number came on.

If they hadn't hurt me, I would still be happy. I wouldn't have died.

But I loved them, and I didn't blame them. No, instead I learned from my mistakes. I learned that love brings nothing but pain in the end. That people cannot be depended on. I can only depend on myself.

Only myself.

And thus, I had stopped caring if I was hurting others in the process of shielding myself. Well, not so much I stopped caring, as much as I stopped thinking about it.

It was four months later that a little boy managed to change my mind.

"Mummy, where we going?" The voice was light and airy, and just the sound of it alone almost brought the first smile I had in this life.

"We're going to see your new friend! I told you about her, remember?"

"The wone who's sad all da twime?"

There was a short silence.

"Yeah, that's right, sweetie. But I have a feeling the two of you are going to grow up to be the best of friends!"

I pulled myself up in the crib so that I was sitting up. To my frustration, that was about all I could do, though it did allow me to peer over the edge of my crib. When my eyes peeked over the edge, I was greeted with the sight of a young mother in the doorway, clutching a little boy's hand tightly.

The boy had brown hair and tanned skin, along with curious hazel eyes that darted around the room questioningly. He rocked back and forth on his heels, causing his long hair to fall into his eyes.

"Keela!" Elena called out, rushing forward to hug the woman, who squeezed her back tightly.

"Hey there, Elena. It's good to see you," the woman named Keela said. "It's not like you come out much," she added, a little more distastefully.

Elena laughed, though it sounded more forced than anything. She rubbed the back of her head as she answered, "Well, I have to look after my baby, don't I?"

Keela frowned. "Doesn't mean you have to become a shut in," she muttered. Elena ignored her, instead choosing to kneel down in front of the little boy.

His eyes suddenly stopped darting around the room, landing on Elena's face. He grinned at her. "Hiya, Auntie 'Lena," he spoke, his words slurred.

"Hey there, Callum. It's been a while hasn't it? You've gotten so big!"

The boy, Callum, grinned, puffing out his cheeks, still rocking back and forth on his heels. Elena smiled, ruffling his hair. The boy scowled, his lips turning into a childish pout. Elena laughed, patting his head one more time.

"Where's da new friend?" Callum asked curiously, his thumb finding it's way to his mouth.

"She's right over there," Elena said, pointing over to my crib, where I sat watching the encounter curiously. "I'm a mommy now too, just like yours! My little girl is really quiet, but she'll warm up to you. Why don't you go say hi while I talk to your mommy for a little?"

Callum nodded, quickly bounding over to my crib. He grabbed a chair that sat about a foot away, quickly dragging it over so that he could stand on it and see into the crib better. I quickly thought about how smart he was to think of that at what looked to be around 3 years old.

He gasped when he looked over the edge of my wooden crib. "Woah," he muttered. "You're really tiny."

Cautiously, he lifted one of my hands up, pressing our palms together. He laughed then. "I've never met 'omeone with smawer hands than me!" He then blinked, starting to rock back and forth on his heels again, and I wondered if it was a habit of his. "Mommy says you're sad. It's not gwood to be sad, you know?"

His childish ideals made me want to laugh, but it also brought a new hope to me. Here stood someone not spoiled by the world yet, with a smile that could light up New York City.

And that gave me hope, no matter how small.

Suddenly, Callum gasped again, reaching into his pocket to pull out what looked to be a small piece of chocolate. "This is chocowate. Daddy says that before things got bad, kids used to 'ave it all da time. He said to save it for a day when I'm sad, but I want you to 'ave it." He held out the chocolate with an expectant smile on his hand.

I stared at the sweet boy for a minute, wondering why he would give away something so obviously precious away to a girl who had done nothing but stare blankly at him. Before I knew it, I felt my eyes begin to water and my nose grow stuffed. All at the actions of just one three year old boy.

He only kept smiling at me.

I sniffed loudly, my hands reaching up to wipe my eyes quickly, before my chubby fingers wrapped around the chocolate in his hand.

"Callum," a sharp voice called out, causing the boy's head to snap around to look at his mother. "Come on, we're going."

He sent me one last smile, before skipping over to his mother. They turned to walk out the doorway with each other, and for not the first time, I found myself wondering what laid beyond that small doorway.

Before Keela and Callum walked out, Keela turned furious eyes towards my mother, who had been watching the two leave with a blank face. "If you ever decide you want to give up this whole thing of giving up your life for a baby that's probably fine, come see me. But until then, I don't want to see you again."

With that, she and the little boy disappeared from my line of sight.

Elena sighed, sitting down on her small bed, her eyes trained on the floor, but there was no way I could miss the endless trail of tears that began falling down her face, or even the faint sound of them hitting the ground. But she didn't make a sound. She just cried silently, staring blankly at the ground, as if she wasn't even aware of the fact that she was crying. I realized I never wanted to see her in that much pain again.

As I watched her cry silently, I understood for the first time that my selfish actions were what was causing her so much pain.

It was another two days before things really started to change. Darach was still coming home late at night, though he spent as much time with me as possible. But every day, my mind only replayed the images of my crying mother, and the young boy who was too smart for his own good, who gave up something precious for a stranger.

I realized then that what I was doing was doing no good for anyone, not even me. Elena's friendships were being destroyed because she felt as if she had to spend every second by my side, and Darach was heartbroken that he could never be home for Elena and I at this time. I could see it in his broken eyes every time he got home.

Broken. I was breaking them. I was breaking the people who had given me everything. What kind of monster was I?

The night I finally realized that was the first night I cried since I had been born. I thought of my family and friends, and how much I'd let them down. Not only in my past life, but this one as well. I wanted a second chance, and I got it. So why was I making such shit use of it?

And as I realized that, I started crying. It was only a few sniffles, and a few tears that sprung out that I didn't have the energy to wipe away, but in less than a moment, Elena was by my side, lifting me out of the crib nonetheless.

I immediately stopped crying, my eyes becoming distant once again. Elena sighed, pulling me close to her chest and resting her head in my short hair.

"You're a strange kid, you know that? No way you're going to grow up to be just like everyone else- you're gonna pave your own path, and it will be one amazing path. I can already see it. You're going to be the strongest girl I've ever seen- Daddy won't even need to chase away the boys for you, you'll do it all on your own!" She laughed then, holding me a little closer, but I could feel a wet tear that was not my own slid onto my face.

"But I don't want you to do it all alone. I know now that there's nothing wrong with you, and your father knows it too. You're just different. And that's okay- it really is. Different is always the best thing." Her voice became a little raspy, as it started to crack. "But you can rely on us, you know? We love you, no matter what."

She laughed again, only at herself this time. "Look at me, talking to a baby like she can understand every word! If anyone heard me right now they'd think I've gone insane.

"Who knows. Maybe I have. 'Cause I have the strangest feeling that maybe, just maybe, you really can understand me." It was then that her body started shaking, and I realizing she was crying silently. "Let us in, Ara. Please let us in," she begged.

And that was when I started crying again.

All of the emotions I had kept locked in for the past 7 months all came pouring out, as I started wailing at the top of my lungs, tears fell out of my eyes to fast for me to wipe them away. Elena held me a little away from her so she could look at my face, and her mouth hung open.

"Huh? W-what's going on?" Darach mumbled as he leaned up in bed, before his eyes landed on me and Elena. In less than a second, he was hovering over me and standing next to Elena.

"She's crying," he whispered, his voice sounding more happy than sad. "She's actually crying."

Elena laughed, and at that moment I realized it was the first true laugh I'd heard from her since the day I was born. "I don't believe you're supposed to sound so happy when your daughter is crying, dear."

Darach grinned, grabbing me out of Elena's hands and spinning me around. "You are when you've been as worried about her as I have!" Just as quickly as he grabbed me, he planted a kiss to my forehead and passed me back to my mother, before running out the doorway.

"HEY EVERYBODY! Arabella's crying! SHE'S CRYING!" he screamed.

Elena sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "That man attracts far too much attention. Whatever are we going to with him, huh, little Ara?"

She pressed her finger to my nose quickly, causing me to let out a little giggle.

Elena's mouth dropped open again. Darach poked his head through the doorway, his mouth also hanging open.

"Did she just laugh?" he asked incredulously.

"I believe she did."

...

"HOLY SHIT EVERYONE, SHE LAUGHED! GET OVER HERE!" Darach yelled again, before running over to me and planting a million more kisses all over my face, while I tried to lean away to get away from him.

Elena and Darach laughed as they began to move out of our small house. I sent Elena a questioning look, and surprisingly enough, she picked up on it, smiling down on me. "Now that your father's woken up the entire village-" she paused to send a teasing glare at him, though he only grinned back without an inch of shame- "everyone's going to want to see you. They've all been worried sick for you, little monkey."

They were worried? For me? But I had never met these people, so why would they be worried for me?

"You see," my mother continued, now outside our house, a large group of people beginning to gather around us, "our village is very small, but we all care for each other. So when one person isn't doing well-"

Voices from all around it made it difficult to hear my mother.

"See, I told you two she would be just fine!"

"Look at her, she's beautiful!"

"The baby of the village!"

I looked up at Elena, straining a little so that I could look her in the eyes. "Everyone's not doing well," she whispered.

My head spun in an effort to get a look at the crowd of people surrounding me. So many people stood, talking to one another, wearing wide, joyous grins that seemed to be directed straight at me. Kids, parents, men, woman, elderly. They were all there. For me.

One voice stuck above all the others. "Is Awabewa no sad no more?" My head snapped to look at the same little boy who had saved me. Callum's lips quirked up into a small smile when he saw I was looking at him.

I smiled back.

"Nope," his mother answered, her eyes lingering on the small smile on my face, scooping her arms around her son and picking him up. "I told you she'd be fine!"

They had been waiting for me. All these people had been waiting for me to start smiling again.

I had people waiting for me.

I giggled a little, my small hand reaching up to cover my mouth. I watched in awe as the crowd around me literally grew silent at the sound, Elena clutching me a little tighter. I laughed again, a little louder, my hand falling away from my mouth.

They had been waiting for me. They had been worried about me!

My head fell back as my laugh only grew louder, and before I knew it, Elena and Darach joined in, the two of them looking happier than I had ever seen them. And that only caused me to laugh more. It felt so good. It felt good to smile and laugh, to not shut everyone out. I didn't want to do it ever again.

I don't know how long I laughed like that, feeling better than I had in a long time. Eventually the rest of the village joined in as well, a beautiful sound of joy and happiness echoing all around us. Everyone was smiling.

Suddenly, the laughter began to quiet, and I noticed a path being made as the crowd split, the people all bowing their head respectfully. My eyes strained to see who they were bowing to, and I was a bit surprised to see an old man walking through the pathway. He wore a small smile on his face, his eyes trained straight on mine.

"Village Elder," Elena said, bowing slightly.

My eyes widened comically. That guy was the village leader? I mean, sure, it's a small village, but this guy was... not in top condition, to be brutally honest. He looked as if he could fall over any second, despite the fact he was walking with a cane. Or, he could be in top condition for his age... whatever that may be. I'd never been around elderly that much, I never knew my grandparents and there was almost none in the city where I lived.

"No need to bow, Elena," he replied warmly, resting a hand on her shoulder. He looked over to Darach, smiling and nodding towards him.

"Did you come to say hello to our precious little monkey?" Darach asked the old man, turning towards me and pinching my cheeks. I scowled at him, trying to swat his hands away. Elena and the old man laughed.

"I'm going to guess she doesn't like being babied?" the old man teased. Elena sighed exasperatedly.

"You got that one right," Darach remarked at the same time as Elena, causing the two to look at each other for a moment before laughing, along with a few other people from the village and the village elder himself.

After a moment, the old man spoke up, saying: "Is it alright with you two if I hold her?"

Elena and Darach's eyes widened, before they both nodded vigorously. "O-Of course!" Elena said, clumsily handing me off to the man, causing him to laugh.

"Does my request shock you two that much?" he asked, smiling at me as he readjusted me in his arms.

"Well, it's not everyday you ask to hold one of the newborns," Darach said, grinning with a soft look in his eyes.

"Oh? I suppose you're right," the old man said, his gaze turning a bit questioning as he looked down at me.

"So why with Arabella?" Elena asked curiously.

"Hmmm," the old man pondered, his finger touching his chin. He started grinning down at me again after a second. "I suppose I just have a special feeling about this little one. There's something different about her."

I tensed, worried that the old man would somehow know that I truly wasn't normal, but if the old man had any inkling as to my life before this one, he gave no clue, as he only just kept smiling down at me. "But you're going to have a hard time with those two for parents," he said loudly, causing the entire village to laugh.

"Hey!"

The old man laughed, waving a dismissing hand at the two. "I'm only teasing you two, don't be so serious!" He then leaned down close to my ear so that no one else could hear what he was about to say. "I'll tell you a secret, little Arabella," he whispered.

"For a long time, this village has been torn in wars, but only recently have things gotten quite as bad as they are now, and many lives have been lost. And so, whenever a new life is brought into our small world," he paused to smile brightly at me, "it brings an indescribable happiness to us all. You are a gift to this village, never forget that. Though our village is lacking much, I have no doubt that each and every one of us would tell you that staying here is worth the sacrifices."

I looked up to the old man, surprised by how kind and warm his eyes were. He seemed to read the unspoken question in my eyes instantly, shifting me up a little so I could see through the crowd of people. They were all still watching me, with wide eyes and smiles. These kind people who not once complained about being woken up when everyone was trying to get to sleep just to see a baby. These warm people who had brought about a happiness that I didn't even know I was missing. There was less than a hundred people that made up this small village, but no one seemed to mind.

"Because you gain a family," the village elder finished, before handing me back to Elena carefully. "Take good care of this child. She is truly something special. I have a feeling that she is destined for great things."

Elena and Darach smiled down at me, and I did my best to grin back. I promised myself then and there that I would protect these two. Nothing would hurt them, not even me.

"Come on, sweetie, let's go home. You need your beauty sleep," Elena commented.

"She's already beautiful enough!"

"Oh shush, you have to say that, you're her father."

"Isn't the mother supposed to say that too?!"

"Well, I suppose, but I'm no ordinary mother, am I?"

"Got that right."

"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?"

"EXACTLY WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS!"

"AND WHAT DO I THINK IT MEANS?"

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?"

The entire village laughed at the two, except me. I glared at them, furious that they were yelling at each other while I sat right in between them.

Seriously, I think my ears were dying.

"Looks like they're back to normal," one woman commented.

"Thank the lord, too! The village was getting eerie without these two yelling every 5 seconds!" another man added.

Well, this should be fun. Looks like this is a regular occurrence. Yay me. If my ears weren't dead yet, they definitely would be before the end of this.

But I smiled nonetheless. After all, I had so much to smile about.

* * *

**Wow. That chapter was a complete bitch to write. I still am not quite sure how I feel about it, but eh. This chapter isn't betad yet either, but I just couldn't resist posting it for you guys.**

**By the way, you all are awesome. 10 reviews total? That's amazing. Seriously, reviews make me so happy, you have no idea. Thanks to everyone else who followed and favorited too, you guys make my day.**

**So this chapter was sort of more build up, and Arabella is coming to realize just how lucky she is. It definitely took her a while to accept her situation, since she is the type of person who takes a hell of a long time to let go of things, but hey, she did eventually! Her new parents just had to go through a few (seven) months of worrying and torture so she could figure her shit out.**

**Next chapter is where you'll start to get more background (for example: where the hell is Arabella?), and also probably quite a bit of a time skip so that things can start moving forward.**

**Welp, this is Obfuscati0n signing off, and see you next chapter.**

**(Iloveyou)**


	4. Chapter 4

Over the next few years, I came to one sure conclusion. Parents are super heroes.

Seriously, those two people give up so much for a child they don't even know. Their child could grow up to be a murderer, or rapist, or just a plain old dick. Yet, for some reason I doubted I would ever truly understand, that had never mattered.

On top of that, parents also had to deal with their pooping, crying, mess of a child- or in my case, their moody, distant, teenage-like infant. I felt bad for them at times, being stuck with a kid like me when they obviously deserved so much more. Sure, I was much easier to handle on the crying factor- since I still didn't do that much- but the silence probably only made things harder on the two. Without me crying, they had no idea how to tell when something was wrong. Instead, they were left guessing, checking up on me as much as possible to see when I needed something.

At times I considered crying to make things easier on them, but my pride was still a pretty important thing at the time (despite being trapped in the body of an infant), and so I was most certainly not planning on giving up the last shred of my dignity by constantly crying. I think that's why the day I finally started talking was a bit of a blessing to all three of us.

Though my first word didn't end up being mother or father, neither Elena or Darach seemed to mind. Instead, my first word was none other than 'food'.

...I was hungry, okay?

Since both Darach and Elena had been immensely busy and distracted that day, both had completely forgotten to feed me. I increasingly grew more annoyed and frustrated as the day went on, as neither of my parents could understand why I was scowling at both of them whenever they came into my line of sight. Eventually, I huffed, uttering only one annoyed word: food. Before that, I had been trying quite hard to appear as a (semi) normal baby, and had no intentions of being treated as a prodigy when I was most definitely not, but that went out the window when I started talking at 9 months.

Elena and Darach officially crowned me a genius at that point, and decided it was a fantastic idea to go around the village, telling everyone they say that their darling baby was a prodigy and 'smarter than everyone else in this entire village.'

As I grew older, Darach and Elena told me more and more stories about the world. Apparently, our small village was called Alford, and was apart of the large country Creta. As far as I knew, there definitely had not been any country called Creta in my previous life, so I began to wonder if I really had been reincarnated into a completely different world. It made sense- after all, who says that reincarnation has to send you to the same planet? I had always believed that there had to be some other life out there in the big, wide universe as well, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me. Though the thought I was in a different world left me wondering why we even spoke the same language, then. Maybe I was in a parallel world, rather than some other planet in a far off galaxy?

I was also told that our small village, Alford, used to be much larger, with many more people. There was a time when our small town had truly thrived, in days much more peaceful. Our easterly neighbor, Amestris, they said, was hungry for more land- and our village, which was almost right on the border between the two countries, was a dangerous place to be. Many of Alford's old inhabitants had simply left, leaving and heading either farther towards the core of Creta where there was less bloodshed, or even to Amestris, which people said was a peaceful country- if you lived inside it's borders.

Amestris... Why does that sound so familiar?

Amestris was constantly attacking the borders of Creta, but even before that, the country was far from perfect- or even safe. It lived in a constant state of war, as it was made of independent villages that had been hostile towards each other for as long as anyone could remember. Numbers had diminished not only due to the border attacks, but assaults from other villages as well. The main reason Alford was still alive was simply strategic placement, of all things. To one side of the village were precarious cliffs- not impossible to climb, but dangerous enough for most people to turn around when they saw them- and a dangerous river on the other side. These landmarks made the village not only hard to find, but hard to get to. They kept us all alive.

Though Creta did have a central government, Darach told me, they had little to no power. What little power it did have over its citizens went to protecting the borders and keeping the villages closer to the core, meaning farther from the dangerous borders, from killing each other, which apparently they would gladly do. Villages close to the border, like Alford, which I now called home, where left to fend for themselves. The government had no energy to attempt to protect villages that could be taken over by Amestrians any minute. So, we were on our own. Both men and women often had to leave the safety of the village to go hunting and gathering, since there was nowhere near enough food inside the cliffs, and each time those left behind would pray they would come back alive.

Darach and Elena were no exception to this, being incredibly good warriors themselves. They would disappear for days at a time. Generally, I would stay with Callum and his parents, or, if they were gone as well, one of the elders of the village.

One day, I asked Elena why the villages all hated each other. She hesitated before telling me that no one even truly remembered, as it had been going on since the country was first founded. _"It's a vicious cycle, little monkey. One person is killed from one village, and their family vows for revenge, and attacks the village that killed their loved one. This kills someone else, and another family vows for revenge, and it simply goes on,"_ she had told me, her voice shaking slightly.

I then told her that that was stupid, and we should just stop killing each other then, because _"what's the point if it only causes more deaths of the people we love?"_ Elena only smiled her sad smile, ruffled my hair, and said it wasn't quite that easy.

I think Elena and Darach both surprised themselves on how much they shared with me, as I was still a toddler. It was a while before I realized they probably shared so much because every time they started to tell stories about the village, or Creta, or anything else, my face would light up with a huge grin that I still rarely showed. They could tell that, for whatever reason, it made me happy, so they shared as much as they could with their now four year old daughter.

I had a huge desire to learn about this world, so I was thrilled about that. I soaked up any and every information I could get about this foreign world, that no doubt held so many surprises and secrets that were just waiting for me to find them.

And I would.

* * *

"Ara, Ara, Ara!" an excited voice rang out, just before Callum threw the door open and came tumbling into my house, not even bothering to knock, with a huge grin on his face.

I quirked an eyebrow at him, calmly turning a page of the book I had been reading before he so generously interrupted me. "What's up?"

Elena, who had been cooking lunch in our small kitchen area, smiled fondly at Callum. "Good to see you, Callum."

Obviously far too excited to bother with pleasantries, Callum only muttered a quick "you too, Aunt Elena," before he bounded over and jumped onto the couch right next to me. Quickly grabbing the book from my hands and setting it down far away, he smiled expectantly at me. I glared, annoyed he had taken away my book.

He only rolled his eyes, perfectly used to my glares by now. "Guess what, guess what?" he asked, frantically drumming his fingers on my arm.

Smiling slightly at his antics, I decided to play along. "What?'

His grin widened further, and I wondered what had gotten him this happy. "Mother and Father are going to take me outside the village today!"

I couldn't help the tensing of my body or the immediate worry that filled me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Elena pause in her cooking momentarily. "Already?" I asked, trying to seem like the fact that Callum was going outside didn't worry me.

"Yeah! Since Father's been teaching me how to fight for awhile now, he said it was about time I came with them outside. Mother wasn't very happy at first, but she agreed when I begged her for a few days."

I couldn't help the smile that reached my face as I imagined Callum following Keela around, asking her every few seconds if he could leave with his father, Tiernan. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself Callum had been training now for almost a year. He'd be fine. "Well, I'm officially jealous," I teased.

"You'll just have to start training too, so next time we can go together!" Callum said, as he hopped off the couch. I couldn't help but notice Elena tense again. "I've gotta get back, Mother wants me home so we can go over last minute training stuff before we leave tomorrow. I'll be gone for a few days, so try not to miss me too much!" With that, Callum disappeared beyond the doorway, offering one last wave before he left.

I sighed at him, but couldn't help the fond smile that wouldn't quite leave my lips as I picked up my book again. Elena laughed lightly the moment Callum disappeared, and she moved over to where I was sitting and plopped down next to me.

"Hard to believe he's already leaving the village, isn't it?" she asked softly, running her fingers absentmindedly through my hair. I nodded slowly.

"Yeah, it really is," I said simply. Darach was already off on a trip outside the village with a few other men, but he said when he left he'd be back before nightfall.

Elena paused, as if she was suddenly lost in thought, before she laughed slightly. "You know, both of you are so smart, sometimes it's hard for me to believe. Maybe that's why you two are so close; you're the perfect match!"

I ignored the voice inside of me reminding me that I wasn't really all that smart, I'd only already been through this stage of life. Callum was the true genius, considering how bright he was for his age.

"He'll be fine, right?" I suddenly asked, turning to Elena with slightly worried eyes. Her complexion immediately softened as she scooped my small body up in her arms, holding me on her lap.

"You're so cute!" she said, rubbing her cheek on the top of my head, before she paused. "Of course he will. Tiernan's been training him for a long time now, and he's quite good. I've seen it."

My wide eyes trained themselves to Elena's. "Really?" I asked in a small voice.

"Promise?" She then held out her pinky finger to me, and I grinned, reach forward to hook my finger in her's.

"Promise," I repeated.

* * *

Two hours later, and I had finally finished my book. After eating lunch with Elena, I told her I would be going to visit the Village Elder to see if he had another book for me. He had given me the one I had recently finished, which was a complete history of Creta. It had taken me a long time to read, as I very commonly had to reread countless things until it made sense. Darach and Elena no doubt thought that I understood nothing of what I was reading, and I simply let them assume that.

When I told Elena I was leaving to get another book, she simply laughed and said that I have 'such an old soul.' I almost laughed at how right she was.

So, there I was, walking through the village cheerfully as I made my way to the Old Man's house, getting waves and greetings from the people as I walked. I smiled and waved back, used to the friendliness this village exuded to every single one of it's own.

I was about halfway to my destination, when a man's voice stopped me. "Hey, Arabella! Can you come over here for a second?"

I turned my head to see one of the men of the village, whose name was Vaughn Dunthie, standing outside of his house, where he previously tending to his crops. He was smiling sheepishly at me, and waving a hand. Sending him a smile back, I quickly jogged over to him.

"Heya, Mr. Dunthie. What d'ya need?"

"Well, you know how my little girl's birthday's coming up, right?"

I immediately nodded. Vaughn had a daughter about two years older than me, name Branna. I liked her a lot, and we got along fairly well, as she often played with Callum and me.

"Next week, right?"

Vaughn nodded, and a huge grin overtook his face. "Yeah. She's already turning six! Time flies by so quickly." His voice was wistful, and a faraway look resided in his eyes as he paused, before he shook his head, getting himself back on track. "Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what to get her. You two are pretty close in age. What do little girls like nowadays?"

I couldn't help but giggle, a little surprised that this is what he needed help with.

Vaughn immediately noticed I was laughing at him. "Hey!" he protested. "This is a very valid concern for fathers! I bet it's only a matter of time before your dad comes asking me for advice," Vaughn said, nodding to himself.

I laughed again, choosing not to mention that if that ever came to pass, Darach could always go to Vaughn's daughter, or that Vaughn could've simply asked Darach in the first place rather than me. I then paused, wondering what I could recommend to Vaughn. It's not like I could just say a barbie doll or something, as those were definitely not being sold anywhere around here.

Vaughn, noticing I was beginning to think it over, spoke up. "I am going out of the village tomorrow, too, so it can be something easy to get that's not here as well."

I looked up to meet Vaughn's eyes, a little surprised by that. "You are? Are you going with Callum and Tiernan, then?"

"Yep. So are a few others. It's going to be a longer trip, but I'll be back long before Branna's birthday. Hard to believe little Callum's already leaving the village, isn't it? I'm still surprised Keela and Tiernan are even letting him go. If I have my way, Branna won't be leaving for a few more years."

After the first part of his speech, I stopped listening, as I thought about how Callum wasn't going out on his own. There'd be plenty of people with him, so why was I still so worried?

As I came back to reality, I had a sudden idea of a present for Branna. "She likes to draw, right?" I asked, thinking back to how whenever we were playing together, she would always end up drawing something or another in the dirt, either with a stick or her hands. "You could get her some paint! I think Muirne knows how to make some, though you might need some supplies from outside the village."

Muirne was one of the oldest members of the village, only second to the Old Man, and she was a bit loopy. Whenever I saw her, she always called me by another name, Ruari, and asked over and over why I had left. It made me terribly sad, as I assumed the Ruari girl was someone who had either left the village or died, so I avoided her as much as possible.

Vaughn's face lit up. "That's genius, Arabella! Thanks! Where are you heading to now, by the way? It's rare to see you and Callum apart."

I grinned lopsidedly, holding up my finished book. "On my way to see the Old Man so I can get another."

Vaughn laughed, clutching his stomach lightly. "Well, if your father ever really does come to me for advice on what to get you, I know just what to tell him. Another book seems like it will always make you happy!"

"That'd be great, actually."

Vaughn laughed again, before he started waving me off. "Go on, go get another one of those books from the 'Old Man', as you call him." He paused before adding, "I still don't understand why he lets you call him that."

I nodded, saying goodbye as I began to walk away, and wishing him luck on his trip outside the village. A few minutes later, and I was walking into the Old Man's house, following Callum's example by not bothering to knock, clutching the book tightly in my hands.

The Old Man, whose real name was Seamus, I believed (though no one seemed to call him that), looked up from his own book. His lips pulled into a fond smile as he saw me. "Ah, Arabella. Here for another book, I assume?"

I nodded eagerly. "Yep! I just finished this one," I said, walking over and handing the book to him.

"That was faster than I expected. Did you understand it all?"

My brow furrowed as I answered. "Most of it, I think." The Old Man only lifted an eyebrow, signaling for me to go on. "I still don't get all the fighting. Mother tried to explain it to me once, but all she said was that it was a vicious cycle. If the wars do no good for anyone, and only cause more damage like the book said they did, why do we fight in the first place? Why can't we just let things go?"

Seamus nodded as he listened to me, before he patted the spot next to him on his own coach. I quickly moved to sit down next to him on my knees, facing him eagerly. The Old Man seemed to consider his words before he spoke up. "People become angry in the face of a loss, Arabella. When the people you love are taken away from you, and it could have been prevented, you lose the ability to think clearly. Your mother was very right when she called the hate a vicious cycle. The hatred never seems to go away, it's only passed onto the next person."

"I don't understand. People die all the time."

"I know. It's a hard thing to understand, unless you have experienced it yourself."

"But why? Why can't people just let go? Wouldn't that make them happy?"

"Maybe it would. The thing is, though, that although hatred can always be destroyed, it is regret that cannot be. I believe that it is not simply hatred that drives people to commit such horrible things, but the regret that they keep holed up inside them. With every death, countless regrets are born, and these regrets lead to the desire to hurt the people who made them feel that way."

"So they're really just mad at themselves?"

"In a way, yes. But it is much easier to project those regrets onto others then face them yourself."

I paused, still struggling to understand, but nodded. I assumed it was something I would never be able to get until it happens to me, and hopefully it never will.

The Old Man smiled slightly, before asking another question. "What else did you find interesting?"

I hesitated before saying, "it's cruel of the government to leave all those too close to the border to fend for themselves."

"Is it?"

"Of course! We're citizens too, we deserve to be protected just as much as anyone else."

Seamus smiled. "You're definitely right. We do deserve to be protected, but try to understand the situation from their eyes. Our odds of survival are much lower than those closer to the center of Creta." I almost cringed at the blunt statement. "And though those in the center still have a higher rate of survival, they are also living in constant danger. If the government tried to reach out in order to protect those close to the borders, they would have to take away protection given to people in the middle. Their view is simply that they should do their best to keep the people alive who live in a slight less amount of danger, rather than us, who could be attacked at any moment whether they offered their protection or not."

"Shouldn't they even the odds, though? We have the threat of border wars that those at the center don't, so shouldn't we get extra protection?"

"That's a very good question, one that I don't have an answer to. Should more effort go into protecting those who could die anyway, or to increasing the chance of those who have a slightly higher chance of survival? I think you'll have to come up with your own answer to that, Arabella."

I sighed, despising at that moment that not every question had a clear answer, no matter how much I wished they would.

The Old Man stood up slowly, and walked over to his multiple bookshelves. He pulled out a book much smaller than the one I had just finished. "This one is fiction, though i think you will like it very much. The protagonist reminds me very much of you."

I took the book from his hands. "_Again_," I said aloud, reading off the book's simple title, before I looked up to meet the Old Man's eyes. "Why does the protagonist remind you of me?"

His eyes sparkled playfully as he answered, "I suppose you'll have to read it to find out."

I narrowed my eyes at him, but began moving towards the doorway, calling over my shoulder as I left. "Fine then. I'll be back once I finish it, Old Man!"

That night, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach up until the moment I fell asleep. I didn't read any of the story that day, and instead spent the rest of my day talking with Elena, and Darach once he got home from his trip, with fresh meat for the village.

I was scared, and I couldn't figure out why.

* * *

Five days later I found out the reason why.

Callum and the others should've been back by then, I knew that, but they weren't. They weren't back, there was no news from them, and I was no longer simply scared. I was terrified. I hadn't even bothered to read the new book. I was too distracted.

Keela was just as terrified as I was, as she would come to sit in our house everyday, going on and on, saying things like _"those idiots, I told Tiernan it wasn't a good idea to bring Callum with him yet, but no, nobody listens to me anymore, and now look what's happened, they could be who knows where, how dare they worry me like this."_

Branna was really worried for her father as well, and expressed that worry to me many times, to the point where as much as I liked the girl, I wanted to glue her mouth shut.

At the end of the fifth day, they came back.

Branna and I were sitting outside together. I was simply staring at the cliffs as Branna traced a new design in the dirt. This time, it appeared to be an intricate butterfly that was flying towards a flower. It wasn't the most creative thing to come out of a five year old, but it sure was pretty.

"Do you think my dad will come home today? Mommy says that he'll be home 'fore my birthday, but I have a really bad feeling he won't. She says she's not worried, but I think she is, cause she's always watching the cliffs during the day. Callum's still gone too. It's not as much fun without him, since you're so quiet. I hope he comes back soon, so he can draw with me. I wonder if it's scary outside the village. If it is, I don't think I want to go."

Branna was rambling on, as she did whenever she was nervous. I simply let her talk, since I never knew quite what to say to her rants.

Just as I was about to tell Branna I was going to go home for the day, I saw something over the edge of the cliff. Quickly, I climbed on top of a large rock in an attempt to see better.

One by one, a few heads appeared over the edge of the cliff, and I grinned. Branna curiously tried to see what I was looking at, but couldn't see them from her position, so I lent her a hand and pulled her on top of the rock.

"They're back!" Branna said, just as Tiernan began climbing down the rocks slowly, Callum following after him. I breathed a sigh of relief after I saw the two. The rest of the group followed after, and I immediately began counting the heads.

Sibeal, Ruari, Nuala, Ardan. Six. There were six. _Who was missing?_

"Ara? Ara, where's my dad? Where's Daddy?"

_No._

Branna clutched my shirt tightly in her hand, as she kept asking the same thing- quietly, though, as if she didn't even realize she was talking. "Everyone's here but Dad. Is he still on top of the cliffs? What's taking so long? Where is he?"

Neither of us called up to ask those who were still climbing down the cliffs. We had been told for years never to disturb someone who was climbing, as no one wanted them to lose concentration and lose their hold on the cliffs.

Branna moved from clutching my shirt to my hand, so tightly I was sure the circulation was being cut off, but I only squeezed her hand gently back.

Once all the climbers made it to the bottom of the hill, I finally got a look at their faces. No one was smiling, like they usually did when they made it home. No, their eyes were empty, even Callum's, as they kept their gazes trained to the ground.

One look at their faces told me Vaughn was not simply at the top of the cliffs.

The world slowed down as my heart kept screaming, as if the space for it in my chest was suddenly not large enough. My hand slipped from Branna's, as I tried to ignore the feeling that my heart was being squeezed tight enough to send me to the ground.

Branna hopped down from the rock, walking over to the climbers. I didn't move. Her eyes searched theirs for some sort of answer, but no one spoke up. I didn't move.

In the corner of my eye I saw Branna's mother began moving forward, her stride becoming quicker and her eyes more panicked the closer she got to the people who should have had her husband with them.

I didn't move.

People began filing out of their homes, all of them gaining a look of dread when they noticed there was one missing.

"Mom? Where's Dad? Callum? Where's Dad?"

No one answered.

A furious look grew on Branna's face. "Where's my dad?! Why is no one answering me?! Where is he?" she yelled.

Branna's mother took a step forward closer to Tiernen. "He's gone."

It wasn't a question.

Tiernen nodded, almost imperceptibly. "We… We were ambushed. By the time we figured out what was going on, it was too late. He had already been wounded, so he told the rest of us to go while he would stall them, so they wouldn't find the village. There wasn't anything… anything we could do. I'm sorry, Gael, I'm so sorry…"

"You left him behind."

Her words echoed throughout the otherwise silent village, and Branna began shaking.

"You left him behind. You left him behind." I watched as a look of pure hatred grew on her face. "How could you leave him behind?! He had a daughter and wife! How could you just… leave him?!"

"I'm sorry."

"HOW?!" Gael demanded, almost everyone cringing at the village at the volume of her voice. "YOU LEFT HIM BEHIND! HOW COULD YOU!" She began pounding on Tiernen's chest weakly, a new tear seemingly falling every time. "How, how, how, how…"

Gael then fell to her knees, cradling her head in her hands. "How, how, how, how…"

"What are you guys talking about? Daddy's still coming home, right? He promised me he'd be back for my birthday, he said he had the best present. Where's Dad? I don't understand!"

I began moving, my body feeling as if it was no longer my own. I moved over to Branna and quickly wrapped her into my arms, where she immediately began sobbing, her wails piercing throughout the entire village.

"He promised, he promised, he promised!" she sobbed into my shoulder, her snot and tears getting all over my shirt, but I didn't care. I only squeezed Branna tighter, wishing at that moment I could take away all her pain.

I finally understood.

I understood why people were consumed with hatred to the point where they killed. I understood why it wasn't as simple as 'letting go.' I understood that I no longer lived in a world where I was safe. I understood.

And I wished I hadn't.

* * *

**Yay new chapter! Sorry this one took so long to get out. I had a whole different chapter typed out, then realized it was really _bad_, so then I redid the whole thing, and this guy came to be. Hopefully you guys like it.**

**My goal with this chapter was to set the tone for the whole story. The first three chapters were incredibly depressing, I know, but this one wasn't as depressing, maybe? Hopefully, because this fic isn't meant to be depressing over all. It is going to have a larger dark plot, but there are always going to be happy times too. But Creta is most definitely not a peaceful place, especially where these guys are. Poor Vaughn, though. I wrote that first scene with him and was like "shit, I actually like this guy, and now I don't want to kill him off." It had to be done, though.**

**We also find out where Arabella is this chapter! In case any of you forgot, Creta is the country to the west of Amestris. Most of the background for it I talked about here I got from canon (border wars, weak central government, and tribes/villages that are at constant war with each other). Arabella doesn't know where she is yet, but she'll figure it out soon. Hopefully.**

**ALSO; WE'RE ALREADY AT 15 REVIEWS! You guys are awesome. Keep 'em coming, because trust me when I say each one motivates me to write the next chapter, and I love to hear what you guys think.**

**Signing off, and see you next chapter, everybody.**


	5. Chapter 5

_Darling. I'm here._

Huh? Who-

_Don't tell me you've forgotten. You left me._

I... I don't know what you're talking about, I-

_Then why won't you look at me?_

I looked, finally realizing my gaze had previously been stuck to the ground in the first place. _How had I not even noticed I was staring at the ground? _Before I could question my own stupidity farther, though, my eyes met someone I never thought I would see again.

"Mom?" I said in awe, frozen to the spot. "How - how are you here? I don't understand."

The woman standing in front of me looked exactly like the mother I had failed in the worst way possible, except for her eyes. Something seemed... off, like the eyes I was staring into were simply similar to her's, but not truly the originals.

_I never left, Darling. Not like you left me._

Guilt. So much guilt. I hated guilt - it left you crippled with your own regrets, knowing you did wrong, that you could've - _should've_ \- done more, but you didn't, because all you did was make _mistake_ after _mistake_. It made you question yourself, and everything you thought previously defined you. I hated it, hated hated _hated_

_Do you hate me as well?_

"No, no of course not, I could never hate you, I love you."

_Why, then? Why did you leave me? Why did you cause me so much pain? I don't understand._

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I'm sorry-"

I was whining now, clutching my head in my hands. _So much guilt, I hate it_

_You barely even think about any of us anymore. You've replaced all of us. Did we mean that little to you? Did we mean so little that you can move on so easily with different people? Is it so easy to forget about us, to smile as if we never existed to you?_

"No, no, it wasn't easy, I promise, I miss you all so much-"

**_Stop lying to me._**

Her eyes were cold now, colder than I had ever seen them, _My mom never shows that kind of expression, it can't be her, _but it was her, it _was_, and she was right, I had failed the ones I loved and then gone on to replace them like the monster I am

_I know when you're lying to me, Darling. Did you forget that, just as you forgot all about us? That new woman - Elena, isn't it - she's not your real mother. She doesn't know you like I do, love you like I do. She's an **impostor**. You'd do good to stay away from her, darling-"_

Stop.

_And that Callum boy, he's nothing but a replacement for Maggie, and you know it. I don't understand, darling, you don't need anyone, you proved that when you **killed yourself and left us all behind** to cry over you-_

Stop.

_So why are you replacing us? I don't understand. Why? __Maybe you should just kill yourself again, get it over with, that way you can be back with us again. No one truly cares for you, not like I did, not like we did. You'll never had what you had with me here. Elena, Darach, Callum - none of them truly care for you. Just come back with me._

"STOP!"

Getawaygetawaygetaway

_Don't talk to your mother that way, not after everything she did for you. These 'new parents' of yours obviously aren't doing a very good job._

Dad? Not you too. This can't be happening, can't be happening

_You'd do well to listen to your mother, dear. I understand, the pain was so much, you thought you had to leave us, but you can just come back. It'd be simple, just end your life again, it obviously wasn't that hard, and maybe you'll be brought back to our world, and we can be together again. It's only been four years. I understand, dear. Just come back to us, and all will be forgiven. I understand._

No, you don't understand, you don't, I can't come back to you, I promised I would fight, that I wouldn't make the same mistakes again-

_**Promises can be broken.**_

But I won't! I won't, I'm sorry, I love you both so much, I'm sorry

_You won't even come back for me, Sis? After everything we've been through, you're just going to write us off? If they're not enough for you, what about me? Am I not good enough for you either?_

**No**, it's not that you're not good enough, it's not, notnotnot

_Then what is it?! Just come back, sis! It's not that hard! You could just jump into the river! No one there cares about you anyway, not like us!_

_Darling, we miss you, you **owe** us, come back_

_Listen to your family, they know best. **We** know best, dear. We know everything about you, not like those impostors. Just come back!_

No.

_YOU SELFISH BITCH! WE GAVE YOU EVERYTHING! HOW DARE YOU LEAVE US_

**_HOW DARE YOU_**

_I WISH I HAD NEVER GAVE BIRTH TO YOU, YOU BITCH_

**_HOW DARE YOU_**

_YOU HURT US SO MUCH, LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE_

"ARA!"

_What... What happened?_

"It's okay, little monkey, it's okay, we're here," Darach whispered into my ear, suddenly rocking me back and forth, cradling my body in his arms.

"Wh- what happened?" I managed to croak out, repeating my earlier thoughts, reaching my arms to wrap around Darach in return instinctively. I felt a soothing hand begin combing down my black hair, the fingers light as they tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

"Nightmare," Elena whispered softly, putting a hand to my forehead. "You wouldn't wake up for a minute there. Scared us both."

I nodded into Darach's chest, clutching his shirt as both the memories of the nightmare and Vaughn's death hit me.

"You okay?" Darach whispered into my hair, still rocking me gently.

I paused.

"No," I choked, my voice cracking, but for once, I couldn't care less about the show of the weakness. "No, no, I'm really not."

I felt Darach nod. "You can always cry, you know. I know you don't like to, but you can. We'll be here."

At those simple words, I clutched Darach's shirt even tighter, pressing my face into his chest. The tears began to well up in my eyes, and before I knew it, sobs began leaving my body. I didn't bother attempting to hold it in, the memories of the family I had left behind four years ago, the fact that Vaughn was _gone_ and he would never give his daughter her paints, and the realization that anyone else I loved could leave me at any second all becoming to much.

Elena rubbed my back comfortingly, whispering over and over, "it's okay baby, we're here, we're here, we'll always be here for you."

"We'll always be here."

* * *

After I had finally calmed down after the nightmare, I told Elena and Darach I was going to go outside for fresh air. They looked at each other for a moment, seemingly considering whether it was a good idea or not, before they nodded, simply telling me not to stay out to long.

They knew me so well. They knew that at a time like this - after suffering from a nightmare that left me clutching to Elena and Darach as if they were my life line - I would need to be alone so I could clear my thoughts.

I wearily walked through the village, my head hung down as my thoughts consumed me. Vaughn... Vaughn was dead, had died on what should have been a peaceful trip outside of the village. All my life I had been told that this world was dangerous, _so dangerous, _that eventually I would need to learn to fight or I would be killed, but I had never fully believed it. Not until... not until now.

After a few minutes of walking, I made it to the river that kept us all safe. The sound of the pounding waves beating against the rocks filled what otherwise would have been silence. I slowly dipped my feet into the water, allowing myself to feel calm at the sensation of the water. Being by the river had always calmed me down n a way, despite how dangerous it was. With the raging water and sharp rocks, anyone would get swept away in a second.

_Just jump in the river_

My family's voices echoed in my mind. I wouldn't ever do such a thing - _never_ again, I had promised Maggie and the other I would never make that mistake again - no matter how many times I had that dream, and it hadn't been once. Besides, the people in the dream _weren't_ my family, no matter how much they looked and sounded like it. My family would never tell me what they did in the dreams. If they could talk to me, they would encourage me, and tell me to make the most of this life that I could.

At least that's what I told myself.

Taking a deep breath, I retracted my bare feet from the cold water, and brought my knees into my chest, as if trying to hold myself together. My eyes hovered over the spot in the river where the moon was reflected, the image being distorted and shaking because of the flowing water. _Why did this have to happen? What did Branna and Gael and Vaughn do to deserve this? They didn't do anything wrong. I don't understand.  
_

"Ara?"

I quickly turned around to see Callum, who was looking at me with slightly wide eyes, as if he hadn't quite expected me to be here. I blinked, staring at him in silence as well.

"What are you doing out here?" I finally asked after a moment. For a split second, I thought maybe my voice had been swallowed up by the suffocating silence that seemed to surround us, as Callum didn't even react to my words. He simply stood, his eyes now trained to the ground instead of me.

Right when I was about to get up to check if he was okay, he wordlessly began moving and sat by me at the river, dipping his own feet into the water. "Couldn't sleep. What about you?"

I shifted my gaze from him to look at the moon, as it slowly disappeared behind one of the few clouds in the night sky. "Me neither," I said simply.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Callum nod, and I suddenly realized how hard this all must be for him. With everything going on, I hadn't even truly processed that Callum had _been_ there. My best friend, the boy who brought countless smiles to my face, had been there when Vaughn _died_. Feeling a heavy pang in my chest, I slowly turned my body to face Callum, though he simply stared ahead.

"How are you?" I whispered quietly, squeezing my knees even closer to my chest than before.

He finally looked at me, but only for a second. "How do you think?"

I sighed, scooting slightly closer to him. "Not very good, then."

Callum paused, then shook his head. "No, not really." I wanted to reach out to him there, erase all the memories of whatever he had seen, because I could hear the pain in his voice and it felt as if it was physically wounding me as well. "I saw, Ara. I saw him die."

I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. _He's not supposed to go through this. He's still so young - why couldn't it have been me? I don't want to hear his voice break like that. I don't want to see his face pale from pain. That's not supposed to happen to a seven year old. _

I didn't know what to say. After all, what can you say when someone has been through what he has? There were no words to make things better.

So I simply said "I know," in a small voice, hoping some of what I was thinking would come out in those words.

I'm not sure if they did, but either way, Callum tilted his head to look at me as he began talking again, and I wished I hadn't seen the way his eyes were rimmed with tears. "When we were ambushed, they tried to attack me. Father said they probably thought that if they got to me first, they could use me as a hostage to find the village. So I was the one they went after, but he got in the way!" Tears leaked out of Callum's eyes, but he still stared directly at me. "That stupid guy jumped in the way, and they stabbed him in the stomach, and Dad said they probably weren't even trying to stab him, but they did, and there was so much blood, God, Ara, there was so much blood."

_I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry._

"And then he kept yelling at us to go, he kept saying they would follow us back to the village if we didn't leave, and so much blood was coming out of his belly, and he was dying but he said that we had to leave him, but I didn't want to leave him, but Father said we had to! And now Branna doesn't have a Dad, her dad's _dead_, and it's all because of me, because he tried to protect me!"

Callum was panting now, his voice just short of loud enough to wake up the village. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, because _how the hell are you supposed to make things like this better? I've never had a way with words, I just don't know what to say._

But I wanted to help, so I started to talk anyway.

"It's not your fault," I said, my voice a little sharper than intended. When Callum narrowed his eyes at me and opened his mouth to object, I began speaking again. "It's not your fault, so don't you dare start blaming yourself. Vaughn obviously thought that giving up his life was worth it for you, so stop doubting yourself! You weren't the one who made that sacrifice, it was his choice, not yours, and by saying it's your fault he's dead you're undermining his sacrifice! Vaughn did not make a mistake in his death. He saved your life, and there are so many people glad he did, because I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come home. Please, Callum, don't talk like that."

We both heard the cracks in my voice, though I tried to ignore them for how weak they made me sound. Callum stared at me with wide eyes for a few moments, before he smiled slightly and looked to the ground. "What exactly does 'undermining' mean?" he asked in a quiet voice, and for a second I wondered whether I had even heard him correctly. When I realized I had, I let out a laugh that immediately dissipated the tension between us.

"It means... to weaken something, I guess. By blaming yourself for Vaughn's death, you're weakening the meaning behind it. He gave up everything for _you_, so that you could live a longer life and be happy, not so that you could mope by a river blaming yourself for something you couldn't have done anything about," I teased, trying to make my tone light, elbowing him in the side lightly. I was thrilled when I got a smile out of him, no matter how small it was.

A silence passed between us, and I could tell Callum was deep in thought. Scooting a little closer again, I slowly leaned my head onto his shoulder. He didn't bother stiffening, as we were both far too comfortable around each other for that, but he didn't respond. When he spoke up again, I felt the up and down movement of his shoulder as he talked. "How do you think Branna's doing?"

I stiffened. Not very good, was my guess, and for obvious reasons. Last I saw her, she had been dragged off by her grieving mother after crying into my shoulder, with a blank look in her eyes. "I don't know. As good as someone can be, I guess."

Callum nodded. Then nodded again. And again - before he abruptly stood up, my head falling off his shoulder as a result. Beginning to pace back and forth alongside the river, he ran his hands over and over through his dark brown hair. I watched him nervously for a moment, debating whether I should reach out to him or leave him alone.

"Branna doesn't have a father anymore," he said as he paced, not looking at me. "Her dad's dead. Oh God, _Branna_. What am I going to do? Ara, what am I going to do? I'm so scared, what if that happens to my dad, Branna doesn't even have a dad anymore. I'm so scared, Ara, I'm so scar-"

I interrupted Callum when I grabbed both of his shoulders in my hands, forcing him to look in my eyes. His breathing didn't slow down, though, and he simply stared at me with wide eyes. I could easily read the unspoken question that shown in his eyes. _Help me._

"Callum, listen to me," I said sternly. "Are you listening?"

He nodded.

"You're gonna be okay."

I felt his shoulders suddenly slump under my hands, all the tension suddenly disappearing from his body. It was as if those four words were all he needed to hear.

"I'm gonna be okay," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper.

"_We're_ gonna be okay."

Another nod. "We're gonna be okay."

There was a pause before my next words, but this time it was I whose voice was barely a whisper. "Everything's going to be okay."

"Everything's going to be okay."

At that point a few tears leaked out of the tanned boy, as he reached forward and pulled me into a suffocating hug. His arms reached around my back and his head buried itself into my hair. I heard a few sniffles come from him, and with a fond smile on my face, I reached my arms around him to hug him back.

"I'm glad you came back to me, Callum."

"...Me too."

But even as Callum and I sat back down at the riverside, my head once again leaning on his shoulder as we relaxed until the sun began to rise again, I couldn't help but think about the words I had told Callum just moments before.

_"Everything's going to be okay."_

_...I wonder._

* * *

The next day, Callum and I agreed to go see Branna. We wanted to be there for her, or at the very least let her _know_ we were if she needed us.

"You're what?" Elena asked, lifting her eyes from a book. She loved to tease me for my love for reading, but she liked it just a much.

"Callum and I are going to see Branna."

Elena narrowed her eyes at me teasingly, a smirk slowly pulling on her lips. "You were out _all_ night, and the second you get back, you're telling me you're going out again?"

I grinned slightly. "Exactly! You're a genius, Mom."

The brown haired woman laughed, her eyes lighting up at the action. Immediately after, she paused, a faraway look growing in her eyes. "Why don't you bring her back here? It'd be good for her to get out of the house. I'll make some breakfast for the three of you. Your dad is off training somewhere, but he should be back soon, so he can join us as well."

"Thanks, Mom. You're the best," I said, smiling.

Elena only waved me off. "Trust me, I know. Just hurry up and bring that girl over already! You're so slow, Bella."

"Faster than you!" I called as I began to exit the house, running toward Callum's, where we had promised to meet. Just before I was out of hearing range, I heard one last laugh and Elena's loud voice.

"In your dreams!"

Shaking my head, I continued running until I reached Callum's house, where we had promised to meet. Our houses were a short distance away, so it only took me a few minutes to get there at a jogging pace. When I did, Callum wasn't yet outside, so I settled for leaning up against the wood house, tapping my foot anxiously. A minute later, Callum practically burst out the doorway, not even bothering to spare me a glance before he began running, pulling me along with him.

I narrowed my eyes at his hand which was tightly gripping my wrist, forcing me to keep up with him. "What's your deal?" I asked, attempting to shake my wrist from his grasp, but to no avail.

Callum turned his head slightly so he could grin at me. "Ah, well Mom wasn't exactly happy I disappeared all last night only to come home to tell her I'd be going out again, so I made a run for it."

I blinked, my face no doubt turning pale. "She's going to _murder_ you," I said, thinking back to the few times I had been on the wrong side of the the fierce woman. Actually, it had only happened twice, and both times Callum and I had fallen asleep outside after exhausting ourselves thoroughly, either causing Keela to worry for the rest of the night, or for her to go hunting for us (and then wake us up - which made two very irritated kids, though she couldn't care less).

"Nah," Callum simply said, waving my concerns off. "I'm her son, she can't kill me."

_Well, I suppose he's right there-_

"Though she definitely wouldn't have a problem with killing the one who came up with the idea... meaning you."

God damn it.

"I hate you."

"Lies. You love me."

I frowned, though Callum only kept grinning. "You are going to get me killed," I said. "Keela is going to murder me in my sleep, and it's going to be all your fault. Don't you feel guilty already?"

"Not a bit. Better you than me, am I right?"

"It's official. I hate you."

Callum probably would have retorted, had we not reached Branna's house. The both of us fell silent, suddenly more intimidated as we stood in front of the house.

"What do we even say?" Callum asked quietly, staring at our other friend's house.

"I don't think anything we say will help anyway." I was suddenly aware that Callum was still holding my wrist, since his grip suddenly tightened, causing me to cringe. "The only thing we can do now is be there for her."

Callum nodded. "Yeah," he said, talking to himself more than me. "Yeah."

Surprisingly, Callum was the one who take the first step forward. But before either of us could get to far, a sound of glass shattering erupted from inside and a high pitched yell stopped us in our tracks.

"JUST GET OUT!"

Callum and I both stiffened, and the first thought that ran through my mind was _but we're not even in the house yet, _until I realized there was no possible way the voice was directed to Callum and I. The next thought to run through my mind happened to be _was that Gael? Why would she be yelling at someone to get out?_

"Mommy, I'm sorry, please just-"

"Get out. Get out, _please_. I can't do this, can't, can't..."

There was a pause, and no sound could be heard from inside. Then, a large sniffle, and the sound of footsteps quickly getting louder as they came closer. I briefly considered hiding or something, considering Callum and I were just technically eavesdropping, but there wasn't even enough time.

My heart dropped as Branna threw open the door, her eyes red with unshed tears. Her walking was stumbled, like she would collapse any second. I felt the urge to rush forward and wrap her in a hug again, if it would only make things a little better, no matter how little.

She wiped her eyes quickly, before she finally looked at us, an expression of shock showing on her face. "C-Callum? Ara?" A sniff. "W-what are you doing here?"

My thoughts began racing, as they always did when someone cared about was in pain. An urge to simply run, run, _run_, came over me - to do just as I had in my past life, run from problems instead of facing them.

But this was no regular problem. This was Branna, my _friend_, whose father had just died and mother had just yelled at her to get out of her _own house_. This was someone who I cared about. There was no time to run.

Not anymore. I promised, after all.

So, I forced a small smile on my face as I looked the red haired girl I had recently come to realize meant quite a lot to me. Holding out a hand to the girl who was still quickly wiping away all her tears, as if she no longer wanted to show any of them to me or Callum, I took a few steps closer to her. "My mom wanted to invite you over for breakfast. You up for it?"

Her eyes darted up to match mine as she gave up on wiping away her tears. She looked back and forth between Callum and me for a moment, seemingly trying to tell whether we were really inviting her or if it was some sort of joke. But when Callum took a step forward as well, plastering a smile on his own face, she seemed to relax. Her lips curved very slightly upwards as met my eyes once again and took my hand in hers, quickly wiping one last stray tear from her eye.

"Of course."

* * *

**Slow chapter, I know. Sorry. Hopefully it kept you all entertained nonetheless.**

**Yay development this chapter! So do you guys like Callum, Branna, and Arabella so far? Hopefully, as all three are going to be pretty vital to the story (of course Arabella is though, she's the main character). So many emotions this chapter, it was pretty hard to write, but I hope everything came out right. If anything seems unnatural or didn't work well, please tell me! Criticism is my best friend.**

**Next chapter is when things start to pick up as well. I almost just wanted to jump straight to it, but this chapter was really necessary (whether I liked it or not). I mean, those three kids pretty much had their ideal world and innocence shattered last chapter, and they're all trying to deal with it. I know, I'm horrible**** for doing that to my characters, you don't have to tell me.**

**Oh! So I realize that a lot of the names in this story can be super hard to pronounce, so do you guys want me to put the pronunciations at the end of the chapter? **

**I think that's all I had to say... so this is Obfusicati0n, signing off. Alsopleasereviewbecausetheymakemeaveryhappyperson **


	6. Chapter 6

I was in awe.

My eyes were wide as I watched a boy, no more than four years older than me. _Sean Devlin, _I remembered, was his name. We went to school together, and I suppose I knew him slightly, as almost everyone in the village knows each other. We'd only talked once, when he asked me if I had done the homework and if he could copy it with an arrogant look in his eyes that immediately grated on my nerves. I narrowed my eyes and told him he should do his own damn homework, which in turn made his eyes widen, and him call me quite a few names that an eight year old should most definitely not know (not like I was any better on that front, though). After that, we had never tried talking again.

But right now, he was beautiful.

My eyes followed his movements as his hands clutched around a long spear, the weapon used most by members of the village. He was training, that much was obvious. But his movements were so strong, so _sure_, quick and graceful and awe inspiring that it took my breath away. All our surroundings seemed to blur away in that small field as I was far too busy watching every small motion he made. The spear was swung around him, as he seemed to strike at targets that were invisible to me but obviously not for him.

I wanted to get closer, I realized. I wanted to see this boy, that I had written off as an annoying nuisance since the first time he opened his mouth, fight. I wanted so badly to soak in every single twitch of his fingers, the intense look in his bright amber eyes, the feral smirk that was playing across his lips, the way his feet danced along the ground in a way that made it seem as if he was gliding- no, _flying_.

In my moment of temporary awe, I subconsciously took another step forward, but ended up stepping directly onto a particularly loud branch. The sound obviously reached the blond haired boy's ears, as he immediately stopped his movements, not yet bothering to look over to me.

_How cliche, _I remarked silently, just as Sean began to turn around to meet my eyes slowly, the spear that was just as tall as him falling to his side.

There was a brief second where I registered surprise in his eyes before the usual arrogant smirk returned to it's rightful place, reminding me just why I hadn't liked this guy upon the first meeting.

"Ah, little Arabella," he said mockingly, taking a few steps towards me. "I realize that I'm quite an impressive person, but it's not good to stand around gawking like that. You'll look quite silly."

I blinked slowly, staring straight back at Sean Devlin. Already he was managing to work me up, my tiny hands balling into tight fists. "Devlin," I said lowly, "the only thing impressive about you is how your ego has already managed to grow so large in only eight years."

His eyebrows rose an almost imperceptible amount, just before he smirked once again, only this time he seemed much more amused. _Does he even know how to wear any other expression? _Slowly, he sat down on the ground, slightly surprising me. For the first time I noticed the amount of sweat pouring down his face, which was hot and flushed. "Sassy today, aren't we?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

I rolled my eyes. "Where did you learn to fight like that?" I asked quietly, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"My parents?" he said in a questioning tone, throwing me a mocking look. "You know, just like _everyone else_ in this village."

I could feel my face growing slightly hot at the way he was treating me like I was stupid. "I know that, idiot. Just..." my face was growing hotter now, and I could feel I was going to regret this later, but I _had_ to know how he could do that. "It was really... ugh, it was..."

"Just spit it out already, Arabella."

"_It was really beautiful," _I muttered in one breath, suddenly hoping he hadn't heard me. The idiot definitely could use a knock off his ego, not something to add onto it. But if his widening grin was anything to go by, he had most definitely heard me.

"Ahhh," he whispered, as if suddenly understanding some deep question that had plagued him for too long. "What was that?" He leaned forward, one hand cupped around his ear, arching his eyebrows expectantly.

"Damn it, Devlin, we both know you heard me," I said, scowling as I took a step back. "Just answer the damn question."

"Devlin, huh? So distant, don't you think? Especially when you just called me _beautiful_." I truly despised this guy.

"If it makes you feel any better, you can call me by my surname. In fact, I think I'd prefer that. And you're dodging the question."

"You want me to call you Moran? Hmm... Thanks, but no thanks. It doesn't have quite the same feeling rolling off your tongue that _Arabella _has."

"_Devlin._"

"Right, right, the oh-so-important question. I almost forgot. Let's see... I suppose I'm just that awesome? There's really nothing special about the way I learned. I've just been training for a long time."

_Nothing special, he says. Yeah, right. _"How long have you been training?"

"Since I was two, I think. So six years now?"

I blinked. _Two. He's been training since he was two? __Why would he start that early? Wasn't he... scared? Isn't he still scared?_

Oblivious to the thoughts racing through my head, Sean kept on talking. "I've only gotten to leave the village a few times, though. They don't want the kids going out unless it's supposed to be a safe mission. But since... what happened last time, they're staring to be even more strict about it now. They say Callum could have easily been killed, but hey, he wasn't, right? Oh, but why are you even here, Arabella? This place is pretty out of the way."

I snapped out of my daze, looking up to meet Sean's eyes. He had long stood up from his place on the ground, looking much less tired and worn out. He looked at me expectantly, his blonde hair falling over his eyes as he slightly tilted his head in a curious manner. He was right about how this place was pretty out of the way- not even technically inside the village, in fact. Between the river and cliffs, there was a small forest area, where many people would scavenge to food. There was a very limited availability though, and almost no animals, so between that and the fact that the soil in the village was almost impossible to grow crops on, frequent trips outside the safety of the village was still necessary. I loved exploring the small forest though, and had long ago found this small clearing that I often went to in order to read. I had never seen anyone else here, so what was currently happening was a first.

"I come here to read a lot, but I haven't gotten much time to with everything going on recently." Sean's gaze fell, and we both knew who was in our minds at that moment. His eyes than shifted to the book I still held in my hands, the same one the Old Man had given to me about a month back, though I still hadn't had much time to read it. Most of my time in the last month had gone to being with Callum and Branna and just trying to make things easier on them. I'd only read the first few chapters, and so far could not see how the protagonist reminded the Old Man of me _at all. _She was bubbly and happy, with a bright outlook on the world that I had always lacked. I suppose we were both incredibly stubborn, but that was about the only similarity I could find so far.

"Oh," Sean whispered, his eyes still trained on the book. My brows furrowed as I noticed the expression on his face: pure surprise, and maybe... _could that be... _fear?

"What is it? Have you read it before?" I asked, waving my hand in front of his face.

His eyes shot up to look at me, as if he had just realized he had completely zoned out. "Um, no. No, I haven't."

He didn't sound very sure of himself.

"O...kay?"

He was still staring at me, but with a look in his eyes I had never seen before. Almost as if... as if he was seeing me in a complete new way. I slowly took a step back, a little nerved by the sudden change in attitude. "Devlin, are you okay?"

He suddenly shook himself out of the trance, a smirk once again growing on his face. "Worried?" he teased, picking his spear back up from the ground.

I scowled. "Who'd ever worry about you?" I muttered, clutching the book close to my chest. Sean's eyes snapped to me, and he chuckled slightly.

"Such a child."

"I am not a child!"

"No?" He sent a questioning glance, beginning to put his feet back into the fighting stance, his spear held up in a way where it was ready to attack at any moment. "If my memory serves me right, you're four years old. I must have the definition of 'child' wrong, then."

"Whatever," I muttered, knowing that I was definitely not a child (far from it, really), but to everyone else, I was. Sean sent one last smirk, before he began moving, and I was once again fascinated. A split second ago, he had been standing completely still, simply ready to attack. His feet moved faster than I could follow, and I had the sudden sense that simply blinking would cause me to miss so much.

I began turning away, still thinking of the words he had said only a minute before. _He's been training - fighting! - since he was two. Two! And what have you been doing, exactly? Frolicking around, reading books, telling yourself that being there for your friends is enough, ignoring the words Maggie told you before you left- "fight," she had said, "for the things you love. Don't let them be taken away from you. Prepare yourself."_

_Shut up._

_You were supposed to fight. Why aren't you fighting?_

As I walked farther and farther away, my back turned from the young boy who was _fighting, _I heard him call out one last thing.

"What, no goodbye?"

I just kept walking, the book I had intended to read completely forgotten.

* * *

"...What did you say?"

Darach had almost completely frozen, still clutching me tightly in his arms (though much tighter than he had been a few seconds ago), Elena freezing as well.

"I said," I began, not backing down at all, "I want to learn how to fight."

There was a belated pause, where Elena stared at me with wide - _scared_ \- eyes, and Darach's arms tightened even further, his grip around me seeming almost as if he was trying to shield me from the rest of the world.

Elena laughed, but in an incredibly stiff way. "Baby, you don't need to do that. You're still so young. Besides, we'll protect you."

I brought my knees into my chest, knowing that I couldn't back down, no matter how pleading a look Elena sent me or how tightly Darach would clutch me. I wouldn't _run_. "But I want to be able to protect _you_."

"We're your parents, Ar. You don't have to protect us," Darach muttured into my hair.

"Yes," I said quietly, "I do."

"No, you don't," Elena insisted, the smile slipping off her face. "That's not your job. It's ours."

"I don't care," I retorted, my voice raising slightly. "I'm not just going to sit around doing nothing anymore! Callum's been training since he was four, so why can't I start now?!"

_"Because I'm not going to let you get hurt!"_

I knew the expression I was wearing at that moment was full of surprise. Elena had never raised her voice at me before. Sent me disapproving glances, yes. Let me know I had done something wrong, of course. But she had never _yelled_ before.

She didn't let up, though. Her expression was more than just insisting, it was _angry_, which was once again something I never had directed towards me before. She had never been truly angry at me before. "God damn it, Arabella, that is not happening! I know what it's like to be trained to _kill_ from a young age, and so does your father, and we are not letting that happen to you - not when you're only four, for heaven's sake! You may not act like it, but you're still our baby, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you!"

Darach's arms fell from their place around me, no longer holding me to his lap. I stared up at Elena's face, watching it slowly shift from pure anger to realization that she had just yelled at her child. I slowly stood up, looking to the floor rather than Elena or Darach.

"If you want to protect me," I began, knowing what I was about to say would hurt the people I loved but knowing it needed to be said anyway, "then teach me to protect myself. Shielding me from the world will accomplish nothing, and you know it."

My eyes stayed trained to the floor, my words seemingly echoing throughout the otherwise small house. The silence that followed felt like an eternity, though it only a few short seconds.

"You will not be learning to fight anytime soon." Her voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear it, my eyes finally lifting to look at her, though she was still looking away from me. "Don't bring it up again."

I blinked away tears, feeling an incredible sense of frustration well up inside of me. _How dare they tell me I can't learn to protect myself, especially in the world we live in? How dare they?_

_How could they tell me I can't learn to protect them?_

"Fine."

I shut myself in my room for the rest of the night after that, pretending I couldn't hear Elena's near silent sobs through the door as she said over and over again _"I don't want her to turn out like us, I don't want her to have to go through what we did"_, or Darach simply repeating the words _"it's okay, it's okay" _as he attempted to comfort his wife.

It was easier to pretend.

* * *

"_Pssst._"

I blinked, not bothering to even move from my spot in bed, where I was currently staring up at the ceiling silently. I knew who it was. It wasn't exactly an irregular occurrence, his deciding he wanted to sleep in my room that night. Ever since Vaughn's death, he had began doing it more and more often. I was pretty sure I knew the reason - nightmares.

"Get in here already, Callum."

"Ah, good, you're not asleep." I could hear the sounds of him quickly climbing through the window and the bright smile in his voice. "I was worried I'd have to wake you up."

"Please, we both know you don't have a problem with that."

"True!" Callum said, as he hopped onto the bed with me, it moving up and down along with his weight. I shook my head slightly, still staring up at the ceiling, my hands crossed behind my head.

"Hey, are you okay?" Callum angled his head so it was right above mine, forcing me to look directly at him. A slight frown pulled at his lips as he obviously realized that no, I am most definitely _not_ okay. "What's wrong?"

I sighed, turning over so I was laying on my side, Callum doing the same so that we laid facing each other. A worried look was in his eyes as he waited for me to 'fess up. "I asked Mom and Dad if I could learn to fight today. They shot me down right away."

"Oh." Callum gained the look in his eyes he always got when he was considering something. "That's surprising. I always thought that when you wanted to learn they'd be fine with it."

"Guess not," I murmured quietly, pulling the blanket closer to me in a childish motion.

Callum suddenly gained a determined look in his eyes, flashing a bright grin at me. "Hey, I can teach you! I'll show you what I know right now, and then what my mom and dad show me as I learn it!"

I blinked, before a small smile began to grow on my face as well. "You can't keep secrets, Cal. You'd let it slip right away."

"...Oh yeah."

I laughed a little, feeling a bit of my horrible mood drift away. Callum began to smile as well.

"You're a horrible teacher, too," I pointed out.

"I am not!"

"Are too!"

The back and forth bickering continued for a minute, before another voice rang out from the window.

"Oh, Callum's already here then?"

I leaned up, only slightly surprised to see Branna at the windowsill. She didn't crash in my room quite as often as Callum, but it still wasn't an uncommon sight for her to be here. Her bright red hair still managed to seemingly light up, despite the severe lack of light. I could just barely make out a bright smile on her face.

"Branna! Glad you could join us," Callum said happily, gesturing for her to go ahead and come in. She quickly obliged, climbing trough the window and hopping on the bed just like Callum had.

"Ara was just trying to say that I'm a bad teacher! She's wrong, right? Right!?"

Branna and I shared a look, both with incredibly amused looks in our eyes, before we answered exactly the same time: "No."

Callum gasped, putting a hand to his chest as if he had been physically wounded. He quickly fell back, his back hitting the bed and his arms splaying out. "You two are so cruel to me!" he whined.

Branna giggled, beginning to lie down on the bed as well, so that the two were on both sides of me. "It's true though! You tried to teach me to climb once, remember? It was horrible!"

I laughed out loud, remembering the day we had all spent at the forest area, Callum trying to show Branna how to climb the trees like he could. Branna had been so excited, saying that she couldn't wait to get to the top of the trees like he could, but she just kept _falling_, hardly getting more than a few feet off the ground. I found the entire situation incredibly amusing.

"That's a horrible example!" Callum protested. "You were just really _bad_ at it!"

"Hey! That's mean!"

I laughed again, realizing just how quickly these two had cheered me up. They always seemed to be able to do that. "You two are such dorks," I said, though not able to keep the fond tone out of my voice.

"You love us though," Callum reminded me.

"Yep, who doesn't after all?"

Shaking my head, I couldn't help but respond - my eyes beginning to droop shut - "Just a little."

It wasn't 'just a little', but they didn't need to know that.

It was exactly why I needed to learn to fight. I needed to be able to protect all of them - Elena and Darach, Callum and Branna, and the rest of the village. I wouldn't lose them like I had lost my last family. And if Elena and Darach wouldn't teach me to fight, then I would just need to find someone else who would.

And I knew exactly who.

* * *

**Wow, this is the shortest chapter I've written since chapter 2. XD I mean, it's still almost 3,500 words, so it's still definitely not short, it just feels like that in comparison to the other ones. I feel like this chapter was a little all over the place, but hopefully in a good way? Maybe? idek man**

**Also, I know it seems like Arabella and Co. are completely fine about Vaughn's death at this point, but they're really not. I mean, they do both sneak into Ara's room late at night when they can't sleep, so that should be a hint that they're still dealing. Keep in mind it had been a month too. Arabella's a bit better, because of course she was _upset_ about his death, but she wasn't very close to him nor was she there when he died, like Callum. hahahahaha i'm so horrible to my characters**

**OH AND NEW CHARACTER ALERT! All of my character's seem to turn out to be huge dorks, and little Devlin is no exception. But almost every character in FMA is quite the dork, so hey, it fits! **

**Well, tell me if you liked the chapter! Or if you didn't! Or if you were impartial! Or how your day went! Or how you're doing! Or what stories you like to read! (basically just talk to me cause you guys are pretty awesome)**

**This is Obfusicati0n signing off, and see you next chapter, losers. (don'tforgettoreview ;))**


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